SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PACKAGING, DISTRIBUTING AND MANAGING ASSETS IN DIGITAL CABLE SYSTEMS

• US 20100246667A1
• Filed: 06/11/2010
• Published: 09/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/23/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Time Warner Cable Inc. (Charter Communications Incorporated), Ericsson Television Incorporated (Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson)
• Original Assignee: Time Warner Cable Inc. (Charter Communications Incorporated), N2 Broadband, Inc. (Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson)
• Inventors: DeFreese, Darryl Lanay, Buehl, Joseph G.
• Granted Patent: US 8,302,136 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/240.10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2543 Billing , e.g. for subscription services payment schemes, architectures or protocols G06Q20/00; e-commerce G06Q30/00; arrangements for billing for the use of broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/21
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4622 Retrieving content or additional data from different sources, e.g. from a broadcast channel and the Internet web site content organization and management for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/958; transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82; stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services including data channel over packet-switching network H04L12/1859
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV
• 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 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

Assets, such as content and related data are packaged, transmitted, received and managed in a digital cable television system to standardize the distribution of content and services from a content/service provider to subscribers in the system. The standardized format for packaging content enables the digital cable system to package, transmit, receive and manage diverse types of content, such as MPEGs, executable files, HTML pages, and the like, using standard system components without requiring reprogramming of the system to deploy new services. Service and content providers are freed from having to develop custom formats for delivering content and data to the cable system. Moreover, the standardized bundling of content and related data that is enabled by the invention allows the cable system operator to automate the deployment of services based on specific content and data to select subscribers.

Claims

1. A computer readable medium which when executed by a processor of an asset management system of a cable service provider causes the processor to perform the steps of:

parse a first message sent from a staging server of said cable service provider wherein said first message indicates an asset has been received by said staging server, wherein said asset has a structure, said asset comprising a content object comprising digitally encoded video content and a metadata object comprising an application program identifier;

retrieve said metadata object of said asset from said staging server using a storage location of the asset provided by said staging server;

determine one of a plurality of application programs identified by said application program identifier of said metadata object, wherein said one of said plurality of application programs is programmed to recognize said structure of said asset;

parse a second message from said one of a plurality of application programs indicating a storage server configured to store said asset; and

generate a third message to said storage server indicating said storage location of said asset in said staging server and instructing said storage server to retrieve and store said asset.

2. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein said digitally encoded video content comprises an MPEG encoded movie.

3. The computer readable medium of claim 2 wherein said asset comprises a second asset, wherein said second asset comprises a second content object comprising digitally encoded video content comprising a movie trailer for said movie.

4. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the first message from the staging server includes a first URL indicating said storage location of the metadata object.

5. The computer readable medium of claim 4 wherein the one of the plurality of application programs identified by said application program identifier is configured to parse the structure of said metadata object.

6. The computer readable medium of claim 5 further comprising the step of providing said metadata object to said one of said plurality of application programs.

7. The computer readable medium of claim 5 comprising the step of providing said storage location of said metadata object to said one of said plurality of application programs.

8. The computer readable medium of claim 1 further comprising the step of generating a fourth message to a second storage server indicating said location of said asset and instructing said second storage server to retrieve and store said asset.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 8 wherein said metadata object comprises an XML file identifying a structure of said asset.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 1 further comprising the step of updating a database associating said asset with said storage server.