Content/service handling and delivery

• US 7,451,467 B2
• Filed: 06/06/2003
• Issued: 11/11/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/28/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: SeaChange International Incorporated
• Original Assignee: SeaChange International Incorporated
• Inventors: Kahn, Brian E., Gerovac, Branko J., Sanders, Mark, Kelso, R. James, Gordon, Yvette Marie, Carver, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Ustaris; Joseph G
• Application Number:
  US10/455,916
• Publication Number:
  US 20040015986A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,985 Days
• Field of Search: 725/32, 725/34, 725/35, 725/36, 725/114, 725/115, 725/138, 725/144
• US Class Current: 725/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2187 Live feed
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/222 Secondary servers, e.g. proxy server, cable television Head-end provisioning of proxy services in data packet switching networks H04L67/56
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/231 Content storage operation, e.g. caching movies for short term storage, replicating data over plural servers, prioritizing data for deletion
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23103 using load balancing strategies, e.g. by placing or distributing content on different disks, different memories or different servers storage management G06F3/0604; allocation of resources considering the load in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/505; techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system G06F9/5083; access to distributed or replicated servers, e.g. load balancing, in data networks H04L67/1001
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23106 involving caching operations prefetching while addressing of a memory level in which the access to the desired data or data block requires associative addressing means within memory systems or architectures G06F12/0862; caching at an intermediate stage in a data network H04L67/568
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23109 by placing content in organized collections, e.g. EPG data repository details of retrieval of video data and associated meta data in video databases G06F16/739
• 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 21/25891 being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4147 PVR [Personal Video Recorder] H04N5/76 takes precedence ; arrangements for broadcast with accumulation-type receivers H04H20/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4722 for requesting additional data associated with the content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4786 e-mailing message switching systems, e.g. electronic mail systems H04L51/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6587 Control parameters, e.g. trick play commands, viewpoint selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8455 involving pointers to the content, e.g. pointers to the I-frames of the video stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/858 Linking data to content, e.g. by linking an URL to a video object, by creating a hotspot
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17336 Handling of requests in head-ends

Abstract

An enhanced playback method including receiving real time content from source links connected to a sources, simultaneously storing the real time content as stored content using a fault tolerant and load balancing method, aggregating the real time content and stored content from additional content, delivering content real time or stored in response to a user request from a user on a terminal system using a cut-through forwarding method.

A content/service handling and delivery system including source input/output (I/O) links, a content handling subsystem, the content handling subsystem connected to the source input links, a service delivery subsystem connected to the content handling subsystem, an input and interaction subsystem connected to the service delivery subsystem and terminal I/O links, the plurality terminal I/O links connected to the service delivery subsystem.

Claims

1. A method for placement of advertising content for presentation to one or more viewers, comprising at a server the steps of:

maintaining an inventory of advertising opportunities to present advertising during delivery of programming content or services to one or more viewers, each advertising opportunity being associated with viewer and presentation attributes that comprise demographic information associated with the one or more viewers and information associated with a manner in which advertising is presented during the opportunity;

receiving advertising content from a plurality of advertising content providers;

further receiving a plurality of software programs from the plurality of advertising content providers, each software program corresponding to specific advertising content from a corresponding advertising content provider;

executing each of the plurality of software programs to discover and match the viewer and presentation attributes associated with each of the advertising opportunities against a desired set of viewer and presentation attributes for a desired advertising opportunity in which to present the specific advertising content and to generate a set of corresponding matching result values, each of the matching result values being indicative of the extent to which the desired set of viewer and presentation attributes associated with the specific advertising content matches the viewer and presentation attributes of a corresponding advertising opportunity;

binding each of the advertising opportunities to a selected one of the advertising content having an optimal matching result value corresponding to the advertising opportunity; and

composing the selected one of the advertising content bound to each of the advertising opportunities with the programming content or services.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising delivering the selected advertising content with the programming content or services to the one or more viewers.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising importing the advertising content from the plurality of advertising content providers.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving each of the plurality of software programs conveyed in-band with the specific advertising content.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising importing the desired set of viewer and presentation attributes for the desired advertising opportunity in which to present the specific advertising content as input to the corresponding software program.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising importing ancillary data associated with the programming content or services.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the ancillary data includes available advertising times associated with the programming content or services.

8. The method of claim 6 further comprising importing said ancillary data conveyed in-band with the associated programming content or services.

9. The method of claim 6 further comprising importing said ancillary data conveyed out-of-band with the associated programming content or services.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the advertising content being associated with attributes corresponding to one or more of advertiser agreements, advertising placements schedules, and useful lifetimes.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising maintaining an inventory of dynamically appearing advertising opportunities to present advertising.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the programming content or service comprises programming content or services stored or delayed to enable time-shifted viewing of the programming content or services.

13. The method of claim 11 further comprising binding each of the dynamically appearing advertising opportunities to the selected advertising content before the dynamically appearing advertising opportunity is consumed.

14. The method of claim 11 further comprising binding each of the dynamically appearing advertising opportunities to the selected advertising content just in time before the dynamically appearing advertising opportunity is consumed.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein composing the selected advertising content with the programming content or services further comprises replacing advertisements in the programming content or services with the selected advertising content.

16. The method of claim 1 further comprising mediating handling of the programming content or services from numerous originators.

17. The method of claim 1 comprising mediating handling of the advertising content from the plurality of advertising content providers.

18. The method of claim 11 wherein the inventory of dynamically appearing opportunities to present advertising is associated with time-shifted viewing of the programming content or services.

19. A method for placement of advertising content for presentation to one or more viewers comprising at a server the steps of:

maintaining an inventory of advertising opportunities to present advertising during delivery of programming content or services to one or more viewers, each advertising opportunity being associated with viewer and presentation attributes that comprise demographic information associated with the one or more viewers and information associated with a manner in which advertising is presented during the opportunity;

receiving advertising content from a plurality of advertising content providers;

further receiving a plurality of software programs from the plurality of advertising content providers, each software program corresponding to specific advertising content from a corresponding advertising content provider;

executing each of the plurality of software programs to discover and match the viewer and presentation attributes associated with each of the advertising opportunities against a desired set of viewer and presentation attributes for a desired advertising opportunity in which to present the specific advertising content and to generate a set of corresponding matching result values, each of the matching result values being indicative of the extent to which the desired set of view and presentation attributes associated with the specific advertising content matches the viewer and presentation attributes of a corresponding advertising opportunity;

for each opportunity to present advertising in the inventory, binding a selected one of the

binding each of the advertising opportunities to a selected one of the advertising content having an optimal matching result value corresponding to the advertising opportunity.

20. A server system for placement of advertising content for presentation to one or more viewers comprising:

a data store maintaining an inventory of advertising opportunities to present advertising during delivery of programming content or services to one or more viewers, each advertising opportunity being associated with viewer and presentation attributes that comprise demographic information associated with the one or more viewers and information associated with a manner in which advertising is presented during the opportunity;

the data store receiving advertising content from a plurality of advertising content provider;

the data store further receiving a plurality of software programs from the plurality of advertising content providers, each software program corresponding to specific advertising content from a corresponding advertising content provider;

a service executing each of the plurality of software programs to discover and match the viewer and presentation attributes associated with each of the advertising opportunities against a desired set of viewer and presentation attributes for a desired advertising opportunity in which to present the specific advertising content and to generate a set of corresponding matching result values, each of the matching result values being indicative of the extent to which the desired set of view and presentation attributes associated with the specific advertising content matches the viewer and presentation attributes of a corresponding advertising opportunity; and

the service binding each of the advertising opportunities to a selected one of the advertising content having an optimal matching result value corresponding to the advertising opportunity.

21. A server system for placement of advertising content for presentation to one or more viewers, comprising:

means for maintaining an inventory of advertising opportunities to present advertising during delivery of programming content or services to one or more viewers, each advertising opportunity being associated with viewer and presentation attributes that comprise demographic information associated with the one or more viewers and information associated with a manner in which advertising is presented during the opportunity;

means for receiving advertising content from a plurality of advertising content providers;

means for further receiving a plurality of software programs from the plurality of advertising content providers, each software program corresponding to specific advertising content from a corresponding advertising content provider;

means for executing each of the plurality of software programs to discover and match the viewer and presentation attributes associated with each of the advertising opportunities against a desired set of viewer and presentation attributes for a desired advertising opportunity in which to present the specific advertising content and to generate a set of corresponding matching result values, each of the matching result values being indicative of the extent to which the desired set of view and presentation attributes associated with the specific advertising content matches the viewer and presentation attributes of a corresponding advertising opportunity;

means for binding each of the advertising opportunities to a selected one of the advertising content having an optimal matching result value corresponding to the advertising opportunity.