RETRIEVING SUPPLEMENTAL CONTENT

• US 20150256903A1
• Filed: 03/07/2014
• Published: 09/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Comcast Cable Communications LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Comcast Cable Communications LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Inventors: Walker, Severin
• Granted Patent: US 11,076,205 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1089 by adding media; by removing media
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1094 Inter-user-equipment sessions transfer or sharing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/613 for the control of the source by the destination control signals issued by the client directed to the server or network components specially adapted for selective content distribution H04N21/637
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23614 Multiplexing of additional data and video streams arrangements for simultaneous broadcast of plural pieces of information H04H20/28
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4884 for displaying subtitles
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8133 specifically related to the content, e.g. biography of the actors in a movie, detailed information about an article seen in a video program
• 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 21/858 Linking data to content, e.g. by linking an URL to a video object, by creating a hotspot

Abstract

A system may provide supplemental content to a viewer of a content item through use of an embedded identifier indicating an address of associated supplemental content identifying data. The supplemental content identifying data may identify one or more supplemental content items associated with the content item and available to the viewer. An address or other identifier in the supplemental content identifying data may be used to retrieve at least a portion of the available supplemental content items, and a display may be generated combining the content item with the supplemental content. In some embodiments, the identifier may be securely provided to a client and may be authenticated as part of retrieving supplemental content associated with the content item. The identifier may comprise a trusted token or security token used to authenticate the supplemental content identifying data associated with the content item.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an identifier of supplemental content identifying data associated with a first content item;

retrieving the supplemental content identifying data according to the identifier;

accessing a supplemental content item associated with the first content item based on at least a portion of the supplemental content identifying data; and

generating a presentation of the supplemental content item.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifier is a URI encoded within a transmission medium associated with the first content item.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the URI is encoded in a closed-captioning portion of the transmission medium.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifier comprises a trusted token.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifier is at least partially encrypted.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the identifier comprises parsing a portion of a transmission medium associated with the first content item and detecting the identifier according to an expected syntax.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifier is encoded within a program map associated with the first content item.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the supplemental content identifying data comprises:

an address of the supplemental content item;

a content type associated with the supplemental content item; and

one or more content attributes associated with the supplemental content item.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein a request to retrieve the supplemental content identifying data comprises parameters identifying attributes of at least one of a client, a display device, or a gateway device.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the parameters comprise information identifying display capabilities of the display device or gateway device.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein a request to access the supplemental content item is based on an address included in the supplemental content identifying data and further comprises parameters identifying attributes of at least one of a client, a display device, or a gateway device.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the supplemental content identifying data identifies a plurality of supplemental content items and the accessing step further comprises:

determining a desired subset of the plurality of supplemental content items; and

accessing the desired subset of the plurality of supplemental content items.

13. A method comprising:

receiving an identifier of supplemental content identifying data associated with a first content item;

retrieving the supplemental content identifying data according to the identifier;

determining that a user intends to access a supplemental content item associated with the first content item and indicated by the supplemental content identifying data; and

accessing the supplemental content item based on the supplemental content identifying data.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the supplemental content identifying data indicates a plurality of supplemental content items and the determining comprises prompting a user to select one of the plurality of supplemental content items indicated by the supplemental content identifying data.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising generating a combined presentation of the supplemental content item and the first content item.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the identifier is received in response to accessing the first content item.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving an additional identifier associated with additional supplemental content identifying data in response to a second content item being accessed, wherein the second content item is associated with the first content item;

retrieving the additional supplemental content identifying data; and

accessing an additional supplemental content item based on the additional supplemental content identifying information.

18. A method comprising:

receiving a token identifying supplemental content associated with a first content item;

decoding the token to determine a URI associated with the supplemental content;

authenticating the determined URI;

retrieving supplemental content display parameters according to the authenticated URI;

generating a presentation of the supplemental content according to the supplemental content display parameters.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

retrieving the supplemental content according to an address included in the supplemental content display parameters.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the token is at least partially encrypted.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein authenticating the determined URI is based on a security certificate.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein authenticating the determined URI is based on a trusted third party.