DYNAMIC INSERTION OF SUPPLEMENTAL VIDEO BASED ON METADATA

• US 20070299870A1
• Filed: 06/21/2006
• Published: 12/27/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Finch, Gregory D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,613,691 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• 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 21/4126 The peripheral being portable, e.g. PDAs or mobile phones
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43615 Interfacing a Home Network, e.g. for connecting the client to a plurality of peripherals home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] data switching networks H04L12/2805
• 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 21/44213 Monitoring of end-user related data arrangements for monitoring the users' behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/472 End-user interface for requesting content, additional data or services; End-user interface for interacting with content, e.g. for content reservation or setting reminders, for requesting event notification, for manipulating displayed content end-user interfaces for retrieving video data from a database G06F16/739; network services for supporting unicast streaming H04L65/612
• 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 7/173 with two-way working, e.g. subscriber sending a programme selection signal

Abstract

A media service application responsive to a media retrieval request received from a user of client computer to retrieve a video designated by the retrieval request. The media service retrieves relevant advertisements as a function of metadata included in the video file and/or stored personal preference data of the user. If the retrieval request is an online viewing request the media service application integrates the retrieved advertisements into the retrieved video and transfers an integrated video/advertisement file to the client If the retrieval request is a download request the media service application transfers the retrieved ad and retrieved video to the client as separate files for integration by the client during playback of the video.

Claims

1. A computerized method for integrating an advertisement clip into a video file being transferred from a server to a client for playback, said video file including one or more scenes, said computerized method comprising:

receiving, at the server, input from a user of the client designating the video file to be transferred;

determining a topic of each of the one or more scenes included in the selected video file;

determining a relevant advertisement clip for each of the one or more scenes as a function of each of the determined topics; and

transferring the selected video file and the determined relevant advertisement clips to the client for playback.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the topic of each of the one or more scenes includes determining a value of a predefined metadata property associated with each of the one or more scenes, said predefined metadata property defining the topic of the associated scene.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining the predefined metadata property value includes parsing each video frame included in the video file to determine the value of the predefined metadata property associated with each of the one or more scenes.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein determining the predefined metadata property value includes parsing a separate metadata file associated with the video file to determine the value of the predefined metadata property for each of the one or more scenes.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the relevant advertisement clip includes querying a database storing a plurality of advertisement clips and a corresponding relevant topic for each of the plurality of advertisement clips, and wherein the method further includes comparing the determined topic associated with a particular scene to the corresponding relevant topic for each of the plurality of advertisement clips to identify the relevant advertisement clip.

6. The method of claim 1 further including retrieving personal preference data for the user of the client, and wherein determining the relevant video clip further includes determining the relevant video advertisement clip for each of the one or more scenes as a function of the retrieved personal preference data.

7. The method of claim 1 further including editing the video file to include the determined relevant advertisement clips, and wherein the transferring includes transferring the edited video file to the client.

8. A system for selecting an advertisement clip for insertion into a video file being transferred from a server to a client for playback, said video file including video clips, said system comprising:

a retrieval component responsive to a retrieval request designating a video file for transfer from the server to the client to retrieve the designated video file from a media library linked;

an extraction component for extracting metadata from each of the video clips included in the selected video, said extracted metadata defining a topic of one or more scenes included in each video clip;

and wherein said retrieval component is further responsive to said extracted metadata for retrieving one or more relevant advertisement clips as a function of each of the defined topics of the one or more scenes; and

a transfer component for transferring the designated video file and the relevant one or advertisement clips to the client.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the retrieval component further includes retrieving personal preference data for the user of the client, and wherein retrieval component retrieves relevant advertisement clip as a function of the retrieved personal preference data.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein a storage component is responsive to user input defining personal preference data to store the defined personal preference data in a preference database.

11. The system of claim 8 further including:

an authentication component for authenticating the retrieval request; and

a display component responsive to an authenticated retrieval request to transfer the names of the various video files available in the media library to the requesting client for display via a display linked to the client computer.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the retrieval component queries a database storing a plurality of advertisement clips and a corresponding relevant topic for each of the plurality of advertisement clips, and compares the defined topic of the one or more scenes included in each video clip to the corresponding relevant topic for each of the stored plurality of advertisement clips to identify the relevant advertisement clip.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the transfer component transfers the retrieved video file and advertisement clips separately to the client when the media retrieval request is an online viewing request, and wherein the transfer component integrates the retrieved video file and advertisement clips into a single integrated video/advertisement file for transfer to the client computer when the media retrieval request is a download request.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein each video clip in the video file includes one or more video frames, and wherein a segmentation component, executed on the client, defines one or more segment boundaries in the video file based on metadata included in each of the video frames to segment the video file into video clips.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein a content insertion engine, executed on the client, is responsive to the segmented video file to retrieve the one or more advertisement clips related to the video file from a memory of the client computer and to insert the retrieved advertisement between video clips in the video file during playback on the client.

16. A computerized method for integrating an advertisement clip into a video data stream being transferred from a server to a client for playback, said video data stream including one or more scenes, said computerized method comprising:

receiving, at the server, input from a user of the client designating the video data stream to be transferred;

retrieving personal preference data for the user of the client;

determining a relevant advertisement clip for each of the one or more scenes as a function of the retrieved personal preference data; and

transferring the video data stream and relevant advertisement clips to the client in an integrated data stream.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the personal preference data defines a topic of interest for the user, and wherein determining the relevant video clip includes querying a database storing a plurality of video clips and a corresponding relevant topic for each of the plurality of video clips, and wherein the method further includes comparing the defined topic of interest to the corresponding relevant topic for each of the plurality of video clips to identify the relevant video clip.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising determining a value of a predefined metadata property associated with each of the one or more scenes, said predefined metadata properties each defining a default topic of the associated scene, and wherein determining the relevant video includes determining the relevant video clip for each of the one or more scenes as a function of the retrieved personal preference data and the value of the predefined metadata property.

19. The method of claim 16 further comprising editing the video data stream to include the determined relevant advertisement clips, and wherein the transferring includes transferring the edited video file to the client.

20. The method of claim 16 further including:

receiving user input defining personal preference data;

storing the defined personal preference data in a preference database; and

wherein the retrieving personal preference data for the user of the client includes retrieving the personal preference data from the preference database.