Inserting commercials in time-shifted broadcast content

• US 20070074243A1
• Filed: 11/08/2004
• Published: 03/29/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Pace Micro Technology Ltd. (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Pace Micro Technology Ltd. (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Inventors: Gutta, Srinivas, Meuleman, Petrus, Verhaegh, Wilhemus Franciscus
• Application Number:
  US10/578,832
• Publication Number:
  US 20070074243A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23106 involving caching operations prefetching while addressing of a memory level in which the access to the desired data or data block requires associative addressing means within memory systems or architectures G06F12/0862; caching at an intermediate stage in a data network H04L67/568
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23424 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25891 being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26233 involving content or additional data duration or size, e.g. length of a movie, size of an executable file
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2625 for delaying content or additional data distribution, e.g. because of an extended sport event
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4263 involving specific tuning arrangements, e.g. two tuners
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4333 Processing operations in response to a pause request
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44016 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for substituting a video clip
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4755 for defining user preferences, e.g. favourite actors or genre retrieval personalisation and generation of user profiles for the retrieval of video data G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/165 Centralised control of user terminal subsequent to an upstream request signal H04N7/17345; Registering at central by two-way working H04N7/17309

Abstract

A method for inserting replacement commercials (7-10) into a data stream (100) is provided where the data stream has program (A, B, C) and commercial (1, 2) portions. The method including: detecting one or more of the commercial portions of the data stream; and replacing the detected one or more commercial portions with either more or less of the replacement commercial portions.

Claims

1. A method for inserting replacement commercials (7-10) into a data stream (100), the data stream having program (A, B, C) and commercial portions (1, 2), the method comprising:

detecting one or more of the commercial portions of the data stream; and

replacing the detected one or more commercial portions with either more or less of the replacement commercial portions.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the commercial portions in the data stream subsequent to the detecting.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the replacing comprises selecting the replacement commercial portions from at least one of the stored commercial portions from the data stream and other commercial portions from an external source (422).

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising storing the other commercial portions from the external source.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising detecting one or more of the program portions of the data stream and storing the one or more detected program portions.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the replacing comprises indicating one or more preferences of a user.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the indicating is a manual indication by the user.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the indicating is an automatic indication from a recommendation system that forms a user profile, the user profile indicating viewing preferences of the user.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the one or more preferences of the user are selected from a group consisting of preferred replacement commercial portions, a preferred frequency of the replacement commercial portions, and a preferred length of the replacement commercial portions.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising outputting an output data stream (400) having the program portions and the replacement commercial portions.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the replacement commercial portions are more than the detected commercial portions, the method further comprising dividing at least one of the program portions into sub-portions (A₁, A₂, B₁, B₂) having at least one of the replacement commercial portions therebetween.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the replacement commercial portions are less than the detected commercial portions, the method further comprising combining at least two of the program portions into a larger program portion.

23. The method according to claim 1, wherein a program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine performs the method steps for inserting replacement commercials (7-10) into a data stream.

13. A device (401) for inserting replacement commercials (7-10) into a data stream (100), the data stream having program (A, B, C) and commercial portions (1, 2), the device comprising:

a detector device (416) for detecting one or more of the commercial portions of the data stream; and

a scheduler device (426) for replacing the detected one or more commercial portions with either more or less of the replacement commercial portions.

14. The device of claim 13, further comprising a memory (418) for storing the commercial portions in the data stream subsequent to the detecting.

15. The device of claim 13, further comprising a memory (418) for storing other commercial portions from an external source (422).

16. The device of claim 13, wherein the detector further detects one or more of the program portions from the data stream wherein the device further comprises a memory (424) for storing the one or more detected program portions.

17. The device of claim 13, further comprising a first tuner (414) operatively connected to the detector for receiving the data stream.

18. The device of claim 15, further comprising a second tuner (420) operatively connected to the detector for receiving a second data stream having the other commercial portions.

19. The device of claim 13, wherein the data stream is a broadcast video data stream.

20. The device of claim 13, wherein the data stream is a streaming video data stream.

21. The device of claim 13, wherein the data stream is an audio data stream.

22. A computer program product embodied in a computer-readable medium for inserting replacement commercials (7-10) into a data stream (100), the data stream having program (A, B, C) and commercial portions (1, 2), the computer program product comprising:

computer readable program code means for detecting one or more of the commercial portions of the data stream; and

computer readable program code means for replacing the detected one or more commercial portions with either more or less of the replacement commercial portions.