Devices, systems, and methods for producing and distributing multiple variations of an instance of a media presentation

• US 20070239883A1
• Filed: 04/10/2006
• Published: 10/11/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Flagpath Venture VII LLC
• Original Assignee: Flagpath Venture VII LLC
• Inventors: Glenn, Christopher
• Granted Patent: US 7,716,232 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25883 being end-user demographical data, e.g. age, family status or address arrangements for identifying locations of users in broadcast systems H04H60/52
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2668 Creating a channel for a dedicated end-user group, e.g. insertion of targeted commercials based on end-user profiles information retrieval from the Internet by querying with filtering and personalisation G06F16/9535; arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast H04H20/10; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; adaptation of message content in packet-switching networks H04L51/063
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8541 involving branching, e.g. to different story endings
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/913 Multimedia

Abstract

Devices, systems, and methods are described for authoring, producing, securing, and/or distributing multiple variations of an instance of a media presentation. For example, one device embodiment includes a processor and memory having instructions executable on the processor. The instructions can allow a producer of media content to define a number of variating dimensions for a media presentation, maintain subscriber variation database tables having records that define subscriber variations in terms of a set of variating dimensions from the number of variating dimensions, maintain media element database tables having records that define media elements in terms of a set of variating dimensions from the number of variating dimensions, and determine which elements and in what order the elements are to be included a variation of an instance of a media presentation.

Claims

1. A media production device, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory having instructions executable on the processor, including instructions to;

allow a producer of media content to define a number of variating dimensions for a media presentation;

maintain a number of subscriber variation database tables having a number of records that when queried defines a number of subscriber variations in terms of a first set of variating dimensions from the number of variating dimensions;

maintain a number of media element database tables having a number of records that when queried defines a number of media elements in terms of a second set of variating dimensions from the number of variating dimensions; and

define a variation of an instance of the media presentation for at least one of the number of subscriber variations by comparing the first set of variating dimensions for a subscriber variation with the second set of variating dimensions for at least one of the number of media elements in order to determine which elements and in what order the elements are to be included the variation of the instance of the media presentation.

2. The device of claim 1 wherein the device includes one subscriber variation database table.

3. The device of claim 1 wherein the device includes one media element database table.

4. The device of claim 1 wherein the first set of variating dimensions is a subset of the number of variating dimensions.

5. The device of claim 1 wherein the second set of variating dimensions is a subset of the number of variating dimensions.

6. The device of claim 1 wherein a record in at least one of the number of subscriber variation database tables represents a group of multiple end users.

7. The device of claim 1 wherein a record in the media elements table represents a group of multiple media elements.

8. The device of claim 1 wherein a number of feedback tables are added to the database comprising data about subscriber behavior in consuming previous instances and wherein the feedback tables are used in the determination of which elements and in what order the elements will be included in the variation of the instance of the presentation.

9. The device of claim 1 wherein a number of third party tables are added to the database having data about subscribers and wherein the third party tables are used in the determination of which elements and in what order the elements will be included in the variation of the instance of the presentation.

10. The device of claim 1 wherein the media elements are edited together into a number of media files by the media production device to create the variation of the instance of the media presentation.

11. The device of claim 1 wherein a variation definition file, that provides an ordered list of media elements to be included in a variation of an instance of a media presentation, is created by the media production device.

12. The device of claim 11 where the media elements listed in the variation definition file are edited together into a number of media files by the media production device when the variation is requested by the subscriber to create the variation of the instance of the media presentation.

13. The device of claim 11 wherein a variation definition file is stored in memory as executable instructions until the variation is requested by a subscriber affiliated with the subscriber variation at which time a number of media element files that make up the variation of the instance of the presentation is sent to the media presentation device.

14. The device of claim 13 wherein the variation definition file is sent along with a number of media element files to allow the media element files to be presented in succession giving the appearance of a lesser number of distinct media element files.

15. The device of claim 1 wherein a variation navigation file, which is a virtual table of contents indicating a temporal location of each individual media element within a variation of an instance of a media presentation is created such that subscribers can navigate to individual elements within the variation of the instance of the media presentation.

16. The device of claim 15 wherein a number of permissions are included in the variation navigation file for each individual media element that dictates how and in what manner the end user can have the media elements presented.

17. The device of claim 15 wherein a variation navigation file includes instructions on how to display parallel media content on a presentation device.

18. The device of claim 1 wherein at least one of the media elements are made up of a number of media particles that were created according to and are identified in a variation-aware media element script whereby the media particles included in the element were determined by performing a number of logical tests for each media particle wherein the variable inputs of the logical test are the first set of variating dimensions from the subscriber variation.

19. The device of claim 1 wherein a variation-aware media element content authoring device is used to create the media used by the media production device.

20. A system for providing multiple variations of media content comprising:

a media production component having executable instruction to;

define a variation of an instance of a media presentation for at least one subscriber variation by comparing a first set of variating dimensions for the subscriber variation with a second set of variating dimensions for at least one media element to determine which elements and in what order the elements are to be included a variation of an instance of the media presentation;

a distribution server component;

a telecommunications network component; and

a presentation component.

21. The system of claim 20 wherein the distribution server component and the media production component are provided in a single system device.

22. The system of claim 20 wherein the media production component creates a number of XML feeds for each variation of the instance of the media presentation placed on the distribution server component.

23. The system of claim 20 wherein the system tracks the instances of the media presentation which have been placed on the presentation component and wherein subsequent executable instructions sent to the presentation component cause the deletion of a number of media files representing an instance of a media presentation stored on the presentation component.

24. A media content authoring device, comprising;

a processor; and

a memory having instructions executable on the processor, including instructions to;

allow an author of media content to use a number of variating dimensions to create a number of logical conditions which are associated with portions of a media element script such that an output produced when the media element script is processed through a variation-aware presentation engine varies for a subset of an audience based upon an that audience subset'"'"'s profile according to the variating dimensions.

25. The device of claim 24 wherein the presentation engine is a media production device.

26. The device in claim 24 wherein the presentation engine is a web server

27. A method for encrypting media files comprising:

creating a hardware identifier for an end user presentation device; and

sending the hardware identifier to a media production device to create an encryption key;

encrypting a number of media files each having a media payload by associating the encryption key to the media file such that only the media payload is encrypted and such that the encrypted file can only be presented on the end user presentation device for which the file was encrypted.