Video Content Monitoring Device and Methods Thereof

• US 20090092183A1
• Filed: 10/05/2007
• Published: 04/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/05/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: O'Hern, William
• Granted Patent: US 8,812,710 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/240.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/64 for providing detail information
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2407 Monitoring of transmitted content, e.g. distribution time, number of downloads arrangements for monitoring programmes for broadcast or for distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/14
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25 Management operations performed by the server for facilitating the content distribution or administrating data related to end-users or client devices, e.g. end-user or client device authentication, learning user preferences for recommending movies maintenance or administration in data networks H04L41/00
• 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 21/26603 for automatically generating descriptors from content, e.g. when it is not made available by its provider, using content analysis techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/442 Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. detecting the failure of a recording device, monitoring the downstream bandwidth, the number of times a movie has been viewed, the storage space available from the internal hard disk arrangements for monitoring broadcast services or broadcast-related services H04H60/29; arrangements for identifying or recognising characteristics with a direct linkage to broadcast information H04H60/35; monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; monitoring in wireless networks H04W24/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44209 Monitoring of downstream path of the transmission network originating from a server, e.g. bandwidth variations of a wireless network arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6405 Multicasting data broadcast and multicast in packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64723 Monitoring of network processes or resources, e.g. monitoring of network load traffic related reporting in data switching networks H04L43/062
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

A method of providing video content includes monitoring packets communicated between data processing devices in a network. The packets are monitored at a third data processing device in the network backbone. Based on the monitored packets, statistics are collected that indicate the popularity of video content items available via the network. The most popular video content items, as indicated by the collected statistics, are made available via a web page.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving over a wide area network at a first data processing device a packet from a second data processing device, the packet indicative of a request for video content at a third data processing device;

determining the video content based on a network traffic flow characteristic associated with the packet;

determining a popularity level associated with the video content in response to receiving the packet; and

providing a portion of the video content at a web site based on the popularity level.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the network traffic flow characteristic comprises an Internet Protocol (IP) address.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the network traffic flow characteristic indicates a peer-to-peer communication.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the portion of the video content comprises:

displaying an option to view the portion of the video content; and

displaying a popularity characteristic based on the popularity level associated with the video content.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein providing the portion of the video content further comprises displaying a subject category associated with the video content.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the popularity characteristic indicates a number of received requests for the video content.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the popularity characteristic indicates a number of received requests for the video content for a specified period of time.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the specified period of time is programmable.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein the popularity characteristic indicates a user rating for the video content.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the portion of the video content comprises:

displaying an option to download the portion of the video content; and

displaying a popularity characteristic based on the popularity level associated with the video content.

11. A method comprising:

receiving over a wide area network at a data processing device a plurality of packets from a first plurality of data processing devices, each of the plurality of packets indicative of a request for a video content item from one of a second plurality of data processing devices;

determining a plurality of video content items based on corresponding network traffic flow characteristics for each of the plurality of packets;

determining a plurality of popularity levels corresponding to the plurality of video content items in response to receiving the plurality of packets, the plurality of popularity levels based on a number of requests for each of the plurality of video content items; and

providing a portion of each of the plurality video content items at a web site based on the plurality of popularity levels.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein providing a portion of each of the plurality of video content items comprises displaying a list of the plurality of video content items, an order of the list based on the popularity level.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the network traffic flow characteristics comprise Internet Protocol addresses.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein displaying the list of the plurality of video content items comprises displaying the list based on a subject category associated with the plurality of video content items.

15. A method comprising:

receiving a plurality of popularity levels from a first data processing device, the plurality of popularity levels based on analysis of a plurality of packets communicated between a second data processing device and a third data processing device, the plurality of packets associated with a plurality of video content items; and

displaying the plurality of video content items based on the plurality of popularity levels.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein displaying the plurality of video content items comprises displaying a list of options to view the plurality of video content items.

17. A method comprising:

receiving over a wide area network at a first data processing device a packet from a second data processing device, the packet including data associated with video content at the second data processing device;

determining the video content based on a network traffic flow characteristic associated with the packet;

determining a popularity level associated with the video content in response to receiving the packet; and

displaying an option to view the video content based on the popularity level.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

providing the packet to a third data processing device that has requested the video content.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein displaying an option to view the video content comprises displaying the option in a list of a plurality of video content options at a web site.

20. A computer readable medium configured to store a program of instructions configured to manipulate a processor, the program of instructions comprising:

instructions to receive over a wide area network at a first data processing device a packet from a second data processing device, the packet indicative of a request for video content at a third data processing device;

instructions to determine the video content based on a network traffic flow characteristic associated with the packet;

instructions to determine a popularity level associated with the video content in response to receiving the packet; and

instructions to provide a portion of the video content at a web site based on the popularity level.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the network traffic flow characteristic comprises an Internet Protocol (IP) address.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the network traffic flow characteristic indicates a peer-to-peer communication.

23. The computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the instructions to provide the portion of the video content comprise:

instructions to display an option to view the portion of the video content; and

instructions to display a popularity characteristic based on the popularity level associated with the video content.

24. The computer readable medium of claim 23, wherein the instructions to provide the portion of the video content further comprise instructions to display a subject category associated with the video content.

25. The computer readable medium of claim 24, wherein the popularity characteristic indicates a number of received requests for the video content.