METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DELIVERING VIDEO AND VIDEO-RELATED CONTENT AT SUB-ASSET LEVEL

• US 20100125875A1
• Filed: 11/20/2008
• Published: 05/20/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/20/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Comcast Cable Communications LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Comcast Cable Communications LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Inventors: Heck, Jeanine, Hays, Morgan R., Hounsell, Randall
• Granted Patent: US 11,832,024 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/61
• 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 21/4826 using recommendation lists, e.g. of programs or channels sorted out according to their score
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4828 for searching program descriptors retrieval of video data G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A method and apparatus for delivering an ordered list of items of supplemental content to a consumer comprising determining a context of a portion of media selected for consumption, determining consumer preference information corresponding to the consumer, generating the ordered list of items of supplemental content as a function of the context and of the consumer preference information.

Claims

1. A method of delivering an ordered list of items of supplemental content to a consumer, the method comprising the steps of:

determining a context of a media item selected for consumption by a consumer;

determining consumer preference information corresponding to the consumer; and

generating the ordered list of items of supplemental content as a function of the context and the consumer preference information.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

presenting the ordered list to the consumer.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the generating step comprises:

creating a list of items of supplemental content as a function of the contextual information; and

after the creating step, ordering the list of items of supplemental content as a function of the user preference information.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the ordering step comprises performing a regression analysis of multiple user preference variables.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the items of supplemental content comprises items at a sub-asset level.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the items at a sub-asset level comprises portions of television programs.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein the items at the sub-asset level comprise coherent scenes within a television program.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of determining a context comprises analyzing at least one of video analytics data, audio analytics data, closed captioning data, and published metadata.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of determining a context comprises analyzing metadata contained in a data stream of the media item selected for viewing.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the method is performed in connection with an information network at a server-side node of the network.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of:

inserting contextual information in the form of metadata into the data stream of the media item selected for consumption.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the user preference information comprises data of consumption habits of the consumer.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the data of consumption habits of the consumer comprises at least one of video-on-demand consumption data, linear consumption data, supplemental content consumption data, and demographic data.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein at least part of the generating step is performed in real time responsive to a request for items of supplemental content.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein at least some of the step of determining a context is determined in real time in response to a request for items of supplemental content.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein the generating step comprises performing a search for items of supplemental content on a network, wherein the search is formulated as a function of at least the determined context.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the generating step comprises performing a search for items of supplemental content on a network including at least the world wide web.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein the generating step comprises performing a search for items of supplemental content on a network including at least a database of content maintained by an operator of the network.

19. A computer program product embodied on computer readable medium containing computer executable instruction for delivering an ordered list of items of supplemental content to a client node of a network comprising:

computer executable instructions for determining a context of a media asset selected for viewing at a client node;

computer executable instructions for determining user preference information corresponding to the client node; and

computer executable instructions for generating an ordered list of items of supplemental content as a function of the context and of user preference information.

20. The computer program product of claim 19 further comprising:

computer executable instruction for presenting the ordered list at the client node.

21. The computer program product of claim 19 wherein the network is a subscriber-based television service network.

22. The computer program product of claim 19 wherein the computer executable instructions for generating comprises:

computer executable instructions for creating a list of items of supplemental content as a function of the context; and

computer executable instructions for subsequently ordering the list of items of supplemental content as a function of the user preference information.

23. The computer program product of claim 19 wherein the items of supplemental content comprise items at a sub-asset level.

24. The computer program product of claim 19 further comprising:

computer executable instruction for detecting a request issued by a user for items of supplemental content; and

wherein at least a portion of the computer executable instruction for generating are executed responsive to the request.

25. The computer program product of claim 19 further comprising:

computer executable instruction for detecting a request issued by a user for items of supplemental content; and

wherein at least a portion of the computer executable instruction for determining the contextual information is executed responsive to the request.