VIRTUAL INSERTION OF ADVERTISEMENTS

• US 20120124618A1
• Filed: 11/15/2010
• Published: 05/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Ruiz-Velasco, Enrique, Asarikuniyil, Binny
• Granted Patent: US 9,171,318 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/32
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0276 Advertisement creation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26258 for generating a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlist, or scheduling item distribution according to such list retrieval of multimedia data based on playlists G06F16/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4825 using a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlists
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

A device includes a communication interface and one or more processors. The communication interface may receive a playlist that lists segments of a content stream in an order the segments are to be recombined, receive advertisement information that describes an advertisement, receive a breakpoint, and send a revised playlist to a remote server. The one or more processors may generate the revised playlist based on the playlist, the advertisement information, and the breakpoint. The revised playlist may include references to the segments and the advertisements.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a device to;

receive a playlist that lists segments of a content stream in an order the segments are to be recombined by a client;

receive advertisement information that describes advertisements;

receive an advertisement breakpoint associated with the content stream;

generate a revised playlist that lists the segments and the advertisements based on the playlist, the advertisement information, and the advertisement breakpoint; and

send the revised playlist to a remote device or the client.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the remote server includes at least one of:

an application server;

or a web server.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a segmenter that splits the content stream into the segments.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the segmenter is configured to:

split the content stream into the segments, the segments being equal in length;

or

split the content stream into the segments based on the advertisement breakpoint, the segments being synchronized to the advertisement breakpoint.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a content source that sends the content stream to the device.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the playlist includes:

one or more M3U8 files.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein when the device generates the revised playlist, the device is further configured to:

select the advertisements based on information pertaining to the content stream.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a Digital Program Insertion (DPI) monitor that generates the advertisement breakpoint based on digital cue tones in the content stream.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an advertisement server that sends the advertisement information to the device and provides the advertisements to the client.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the client includes one or more of:

a tablet computer;

personal computer;

laptop computer;

smart phone;

cell phone;

personal digital assistant;

gaming console;

or a browser.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the revised playlist includes:

a list of identifiers of the segments, the identifiers interleaved with identifiers of the advertisements.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the identifiers of the segments include:

a universal resource locator (URL) or a universal resource identifier (URI) associated with each segment.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the content stream comprises a stream formatted in accordance with:

H.264;

MPEG-4 Advanced Video Encoding (AVC);

or

high efficiency advanced audio coding (HE-AAC).

14. The system of claim 1, further comprising one or more of:

a content source that generates the content stream and provides the content stream to the device and a segmenter;

the segmenter, which splits the content stream into the segments and outputs the segments and the playlist;

the remote server;

a content server that stores the segments received from the segmenter;

or

an advertisement server that stores the advertisements and sends the advertisement information to the device.

15. A method comprising:

receiving a playlist that lists segments of a content stream in an order the segments are to be played by a client;

receiving advertisement information that describes advertisements;

receiving an advertisement breakpoint associated with the content stream;

generating a revised playlist that lists the segments and the advertisements based on the playlist, the advertisement information, and the advertisement breakpoint; and

sending the revised playlist to a remote server.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

receiving the content stream from an encoder device.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

determining the advertisement breakpoint by analyzing digital cue tones embedded in the content stream.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

partitioning the content stream into files of an equal length;

or

portioning the content stream into files of varying lengths based on the advertisement breakpoint.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

repeating, until the content stream terminates, the receiving a playlist, receiving advertisement information, receiving an advertisement breakpoint, constructing a revised playlist, and sending the revised playlist to the remove server.

20. A device comprising:

a communication interface to;

receive a playlist that lists segments of a content stream in an order the segments are to be recombined,

receive advertisement information that describes an advertisement,

receive a breakpoint, and

send a revised playlist to a remote server; and

one or more processors to;

generate the revised playlist based on the playlist, the advertisement information, and the breakpoint,

wherein the revised playlist includes references to the segments and the advertisements