SYSTEM, DEVICE, AND METHOD FOR DELIVERING MULTIMEDIA

• US 20090199230A1
• Filed: 08/01/2007
• Published: 08/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/02/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vecima Networks Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Concurrent Computer Corporation
• Inventors: Kumar, Kshitij, Paul, Debraj, Steinberg, Avigdor L.
• Granted Patent: US 8,695,031 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/32
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0268 at point-of-sale [POS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4878 Advertisement messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0027 Collaboration services where a computer is used for data transfer and the telephone is used for telephonic communication

Abstract

A system and method for delivery of multimedia data includes a plurality of media devices coupled to each other via a network. Each of the media devices is configured to retrieve multimedia data and advertisement data from an external source such as a public and/or private network. The multimedia data may include a number of video clips and the advertisement data includes a number of advertisements. Each media device is also configured to associate an advertisement of the advertisement data to a video clip of the multimedia data based on one of a number of criteria and transmit the associated video clip and advertisement to a playback device for viewing thereon.

Claims

1. A system for delivering multimedia, the system comprising a plurality of media devices coupled to each other via a network, each media device being configured:

to retrieve multimedia data and advertisement data from an external source, the multimedia data including a number of video clips and the advertisement data including a number of advertisements,

store the multimedia data and the advertisement data,

transmit the multimedia data to at least one other media device in response to a request for the multimedia data, and

associate an advertisement of the advertisement data to a video clip of the multimedia data.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein to store the multimedia data comprises to store the multimedia data in a distributed manner.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein to associate the advertisement to the video clip comprises to associate the advertisement to the video clip based on metadata associated with the video clip and the advertisement.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein to associate the advertisement to the video clip comprises to associate the advertisement to the video clip based on at least one of the category of the video, the category of the advertisement, a profile of the a user requesting the video, and the popularity of the video.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the network is a hybrid peer-to-peer-client/server network.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein each media device is further configured to transmit the associated video and advertisement to a television service provider headend station.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a playback device coupled to at least one of the media devices and located remotely therefrom, the playback device being configured to receive the associated video and advertisement from the coupled media device in response to a request from a user of the playback device and display the associated video and advertisement to the user.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the playback device is configured to display a preview of available videos to the user and generate a request for a video in response to a selection made by the user.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the playback device is configured to upload a video to one of the media devices in response to a command provided by the user.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the media device coupled to the playback device is further configured to determine a number of available sources of the user requested video and select a sub-set of the number of available sources based on a calculated download time of each number of available sources.

11. A method for delivering multimedia, the method comprising:

retrieving multimedia data and advertisement data from an external source, the multimedia data including a number of video clips and the advertisement data including a number of advertisements;

storing the multimedia data and the advertisement data;

transmitting the multimedia data to at least one other media device over a network in response to a request for the multimedia data; and

associating an advertisement of the advertisement data to a video clip of the multimedia data.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein storing the multimedia data comprises to storing the multimedia data in a distributed manner between at least two of the media devices.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein associating the advertisement to the video clip comprises associating the advertisement to the video clip based on metadata associated with the video clip and the advertisement.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein associating the advertisement to the video clip comprises associating the advertisement to the video clip based on at least one of the category of the video, the category of the advertisement, a profile of the a user requesting the video, and the popularity of the video.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein transmitting the multimedia data to the at least one other media device over the network comprises transmitting the multimedia data to the at least one other media device over a hybrid peer-to-peer-client/server network.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising transmitting the associated video and advertisement to a television service provider headend station.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving the associated video and advertisement with a playback device coupled to at least one of the media devices and located remotely therefrom in response to a request form a user of the playback device; and

displaying the associated video and advertisement to the user.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

displaying a preview of available videos to the user; and

generating a request for a video in response to a selection made by the user.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising uploading a video to one of the media devices in response to a command provided by the user.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

determining a number of available sources of the user requested video; and

selecting a sub-set of the number of available sources based on a calculated download time of each number of available sources.

21-100. -100. (canceled)