Apparatus and Method for Estimating User Interest Degree of a Program

• US 20080097949A1
• Filed: 11/28/2005
• Published: 04/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Pace PLC (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Kelly, Declan, Shi, Xiaowei
• Application Number:
  US11/719,957
• Publication Number:
  US 20080097949A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/52
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44204 Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31
• 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 21/4662 characterized by learning algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4668 for recommending content, e.g. movies
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/163 by receiver means only

Abstract

The present invention provides a method for estimating a user'"'"'s interest degree in a playing program, the method includes the steps of: monitoring the user'"'"'s behavior on the program including at least two segments, and each of them correspond to different time weight; determining the length and the time weight of the segment played corresponding to the user'"'"'s behavior; and acquiring the user'"'"'s interest degree in the program according to the length and the time weight of segment played.

Claims

1. A method for estimating a user'"'"'s interest degree in a playing program, comprising the steps of:

a. monitoring the user'"'"'s behavior on the program including at least two segments each of which correspond to different time weight;

b. determining the length and the time weight of the segment played corresponding to the behavior; and

c. acquiring the user'"'"'s interest degree in the program according to the length and the time weight of segment played.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the time weight is set by the user.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the time weight is set by the program provider.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user'"'"'s behavior includes the position of interruption at which the user interrupts playing the program each time, wherein step (b) includes:

determining the position of the segment played according to the position of interruption; and

obtaining the length of the segment played and the time weight according to the position of the segment played.

5. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user'"'"'s behavior includes the times of the user'"'"'s interruption in playing the program, wherein step (c) includes acquiring the user'"'"'s interest degree in the program according to the length and the time weight of the segment played as well as the times of interruption in playing.

6. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein step (c) includes:

(i) obtaining the total length of the program;

(ii) processing the length of the segment played and the time weight to obtain a weighted length of segment played;

(iii) comparing the total length with the weighted length of segment played to acquire the user'"'"'s interest degree in the program.

7. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user'"'"'s behavior includes the times of the user'"'"'s interruption in playing the program and the positions of interruption, wherein step (b) includes using the times of interruption and the positions of interruption corresponding to the segment played as input variables to obtain the time weight corresponding to the segment played through the method of fuzzy logic reference rule.

8. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the time weight of at least one segment is a specific value for reducing the interest degree.

9. A method for updating the user profile, comprising the steps of:

a. monitoring a user'"'"'s behavior on a playing program including at least two segments each of which correspond to different time weight;

b. determining the length of the segment played corresponding to the behavior and the time weight;

c. acquiring the user'"'"'s interest degree in the program according to the length and the time weight of segment played;

d. modifying the user profile according to the interest degree.

10. An apparatus for estimating the user'"'"'s interest degree in a playing program, comprising:

an interactive means, for monitoring the user'"'"'s behavior on the program including at least two segments each of which correspond to different time weight;

a determining means for determining the length and the time weight of the segment played corresponding to the user'"'"'s behavior; and

an acquiring means for acquiring the user'"'"'s interest degree in the program according to the length and the time weight of segment played.

11. An apparatus as claimed in claim 10, wherein the user'"'"'s behavior includes the position of interruption at which the user interrupts the program each time, the determining means comprises:

a position determining means for determining the position of the segment played on the basis of a interruption position; and

a segment acquiring means for acquiring the length and the time weight of the segment played on the basis of the position of the segment played.

12. An apparatus as claimed in claim 10, wherein the user'"'"'s behavior includes the times of the user'"'"'s interruption in playing the program, and wherein the acquiring means is further used for acquiring the user'"'"'s interest degree in the program according to the length and the time weight of the segment played as well as the times of interruption in playing.

13. An apparatus as claimed in claim 10, wherein the acquiring means further comprise:

a length acquiring means for acquiring the total length of the program;

a weighting means for processing the length of the segment played and the time weight to obtain a weighted length of segment played; and

a comparing means for comparing the total length and the weighted length of segment played to acquire the user'"'"'s interest degree in the program.

14. An apparatus for updating the user profile, comprising:

an interactive means, for monitoring the user'"'"'s behavior on a playing program including at least two segments each of which correspond to different time weight;

a determining means for determining the length of the segment played corresponding to the user'"'"'s behavior and the time weight;

an acquiring means for acquiring the user'"'"'s interest degree in the program according to the length and the time weight of segment played; and

a modifying means for modifying the user profile according to the interest degree.