METHODS AND APPARATUS TO MEASURE EXPOSURE TO STREAMING MEDIA

• US 20140229629A1
• Filed: 03/11/2013
• Published: 08/14/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Original Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Inventors: Besehanic, Jan
• Granted Patent: US 9,357,261 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/29 Arrangements for monitoring broadcast services or broadcast-related services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/31 Arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/33 Arrangements for monitoring the users' behaviour or opinions
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/37 for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/40 for identifying broadcast time
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/43 for identifying broadcast channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/74 using programme related information, e.g. title, composer or interpreter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/564 Enhancement of application control based on intercepted application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/251 Learning process for intelligent management, e.g. learning user preferences for recommending movies details of learning user preferences for the retrieval of video data in a video database G06F16/739; computer systems using learning methods G06N3/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25883 being end-user demographical data, e.g. age, family status or address arrangements for identifying locations of users in broadcast systems H04H60/52
• 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 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6175 involving transmission via Internet broadcast-related systems characterised by the transmission system being the Internet H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8405 represented by keywords
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/60 for the sound signals

Abstract

Methods and apparatus to measure exposure to streaming media are disclosed herein. An example method includes demultiplexing a closed captioning transport stream from a media stream, the media stream intercepted intermediate a media device and a display. Metadata is extracted from the closed captioning transport stream. At least one of the metadata or data based on the metadata is exported to a media measurement server.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

obtaining a watermark associated with media;

embedding a textual representation of the watermark into a timed text track;

transcoding the media into a transport stream, the transport stream having a streaming format;

transmitting the media and the timed text track to a media device, the media device to embed the watermark into a transport stream of the media;

intercepting the media;

accessing the watermark in the transport stream; and

forwarding the watermark to a central facility.

2. The method as described in claim 1, further comprising associating the watermark with the media at the central facility.

3. The method as described in claim 2, further comprising transmitting audience identifying information to the central facility.

4. The method as described in claim 3, further comprising associating the audience identifying information with the media.

5. The method as described in claim 4, further comprising generating a media exposure report based on the audience identifying information and the media.

6. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the transport stream is a closed captioning transport stream.

7. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the media is intercepted intermediate the media device and a display.

8. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the streaming format is a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Live Streaming (HLS) protocol.

9. A system to measure exposure to streaming media, the system comprising:

a service provider to obtain a watermark associated with media, the service provider to embed the watermark into a timed text track;

a media device to receive the media and the timed text track from the service provider, the media device to embed the watermark of the timed text track into a closed captioning portion of the media, the media device to transmit the media to a display; and

a media monitor to intercept the media intermediate the media device and the display, the media monitor to access the watermark in the closed captioning portion.

10. The system as described in claim 9, further comprising a central facility to receive the watermark from the media monitor.

11. The system as described in claim 10, wherein the media monitor is to collect audience identifying information associated with the display and transmit the audience identifying information to the central facility.

12. The system as described in claim 11, wherein the central facility is to generate a media exposure report based on the audience identifying information and the watermark.

13. A tangible machine-readable storage medium comprising machine-readable instructions which, when executed, cause a machine to:

obtain a watermark associated with media;

embed a textual representation of the watermark into a timed text track;

transcode the media into a transport stream, the transport stream having a streaming format;

transmitting the media and the timed text track to a media device, the media device to embed the watermark into a transport stream of the media;

intercept the media;

access the watermark in the transport stream; and

forward the watermark to a central facility.

14. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 13, further comprising instructions which, when executed cause the machine to associate the watermark with the media at the central facility.

15. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprising instructions which, when executed cause the machine to transmit audience identifying information to the central facility.

16. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising instructions which, when executed cause the machine to associate the audience identifying information with the media.

17. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 16, further comprising instructions which, when executed cause the machine to generate a media exposure report based on the audience identifying information and the media.

18. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the transport stream is a closed captioning transport stream.

19. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the media is intercepted intermediate the media device and a display.

20. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the streaming format is a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Live Streaming (HLS) protocol.