METHODS AND APPARATUS TO DETECT CONTENT SKIPPING BY A CONSUMER OF A RECORDED PROGRAM

• US 20070248310A1
• Filed: 06/21/2007
• Published: 10/25/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/17/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Original Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Inventors: Brown, Scott, Feininger, William
• Granted Patent: US 8,989,554 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 386/241
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2007/1739 the upstream communication being transmitted via a separate link, e.g. telephone line
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4147 PVR [Personal Video Recorder] H04N5/76 takes precedence ; arrangements for broadcast with accumulation-type receivers H04H20/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/440281 by altering the temporal resolution, e.g. by frame skipping television signal recording using magnetic recording on tape for reproducing at a rate different from the recording rate H04N5/783
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44222 Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6175 involving transmission via Internet broadcast-related systems characterised by the transmission system being the Internet H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6187 involving transmission via a telephone network, e.g. POTS
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6587 Control parameters, e.g. trick play commands, viewpoint selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/76 Television signal recording
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/93 Regeneration of the television signal or of selected parts thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/173 with two-way working, e.g. subscriber sending a programme selection signal

Abstract

Methods and apparatus to detect content skipping by a consumer of a recorded program are disclosed. In a disclosed method, a plurality of recording times of sections of a recorded program are stored in association with playback times of the recorded program. Playback intervals between sequential pairs of the playback times are compared with corresponding recording intervals between sequential pairs of the recording times to determine if any portion of the recorded program was not played back in real time.

Claims

1. An apparatus to detect portions of a recorded program that were not played back in real time comprising:

a time stamper to record a plurality of recording times in association with a recorded program;

a memory to store the recorded program; and

a presentation time retriever to retrieve the recording time of a section of the recorded program being played back and to store the retrieved recording time in association with a playback time.

2. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the playback time is provided by the time stamper.

3. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the recorded program is stored as a plurality of packets, and the time stamper records the recording times in headers of the packets.

4. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 further comprising a non-real time content identifier responsive to a detected difference between a recording interval and a playback interval to identify a portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time.

5. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the plurality of recording times substantially correspond to times at which respective sections of the recorded program are recorded by a local device.

6. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the recorded program is stored in the memory as a plurality of data packets, and the recording times are stored in headers of the data packets.

7. An apparatus as defined in claim 6 wherein each of the recording times is stored in association with at least one respective packet.

8. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the playback time substantially corresponds to a time at which the section of the recorded program is played.

9. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the playback time is stored in a log entry data structure.

11. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the presentation time retriever stores the retrieved recording time in association with a playback time by storing the retrieved recording time in a log entry data structure representative of a playback time.

12. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein, if a difference detector detects a difference between a playback interval and a recording interval, then a portion of the recorded program corresponding to the recording interval was not played back in real time.

13. An apparatus as defined in claim 4 wherein the non-real time content identifier identifies the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time by:

comparing a start time of the recording interval associated with the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time to known start times associated with segments of the recorded program;

comparing an end time of the recording interval associated with the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time to known end times associated with segments of the recorded program; and

if the start time of the recording interval associated with the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time substantially matches the known start time of a first segment, and the end time of the recording interval associated with the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time substantially matches the known end time of the first segment, the non-real time content identifier identifies the first segment as the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time.

14. An apparatus as defined in claim 13 wherein if the start time of the recording interval associated with the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time substantially matches the known start time of the first segment, and the end time of the recording interval associated with the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time substantially matches the known end time of a second segment, the non-real time content identifier identifies the first segment, the second segment and any segments between the first and second segments as the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time.

15. An apparatus as defined in claim 13 wherein the start times and the end times of the recording interval associated with the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time are normalized to a broadcast duration of the recorded program.

16. An apparatus as defined in claim 4 wherein the non-real time content identifier identifies the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time by:

comparing the recording interval associated with the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time to known intervals associated with segments of the recorded program; and

if the recording interval associated with the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time overlaps with at least a predetermined amount of at least one of the known intervals, identifying at least one segment associated with the at least one of the known intervals as the portion that was not played back in real time.

17. An apparatus as defined in claim 16 wherein the recording interval associated with the portion of the recorded program that was not played back in real time is normalized to a broadcast duration of the recorded program.

18. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the recorded program is recorded on a local recording device from a broadcast signal.

19. An apparatus as defined in claim 18 wherein the local recording device comprises at least one of:

a digital video recorder, a set top box, a personal video recorder, and an analog video recorder.

20. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the presentation time retriever stores at least one of:

(a) a channel identifier, (b) a broadcast station identifier, (c) an input source code, (d) a program identifier, (e) a name of the recorded program, (f) a universal network identifier, (g) a universal program identifier, (h) a digital recording device serial number, (i) a tuner identification number, and (j) a playback mode code in association with the playback time.

21. An apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein (a) if a recording interval is zero, then playback was paused for a duration of the corresponding playback interval, (b) if a recording interval has a first sign, then a corresponding portion of the recorded program was played at a rate different than real time, and (c) if a recording interval has a second sign opposite the first sign, then a rewind event has occurred.

22. An apparatus as defined in claim 4 further comprising a recapture identifier to determine if a portion of the recorded program that was passed at a rate greater than real time was viewed in real time as a result of rewinding the recorded program.

23. An apparatus as defined in claim 22 wherein at least one of the time stamper, the memory and the presentation time retriever are located at a monitored home, and at least one of the interval detector, the difference detector, the non-real time content identifier, and the recapture identifier are located at at least one of a collection facility and a data logging device.

10. An apparatus as defined in claim 10 wherein the presentation time retriever stores the retrieved recording time in a log entry data structure.

24. A method of developing usage data with respect to a recorded program comprising:

storing recording times in association with recorded sections of the recorded program;

playing back at least one of the recorded sections;

retrieving the recording time associated with the at least one of the recorded sections; and

recording the retrieved recording time of the at least one of the recorded sections in association with a playback time of the at least one of the recorded sections.

25. A method for generating a playback information log file entry, comprising:

storing a timestamp in a log file when a stored broadcast is played back;

storing a recording time of the stored broadcast in the log file; and

storing a program identifier in the log file.

26. A method as defined in claim 25 wherein the log file stores at least one of:

(a) a broadcast channel number, (b) an input source code for the stored broadcast, (c) a station name for a station that broadcast the stored broadcast, (d) a program name for the stored broadcast, (e) a universal station identifier for the station that broadcast the stored broadcast, (f) a universal network identifier, (g) a universal program identifier, (h) a digital recording device serial number, (i) a tuner identification number, and (j) a playback mode code for the stored broadcast.