Describing media content in terms of degrees

• US 7,640,563 B2
• Filed: 04/16/2002
• Issued: 12/29/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/16/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Marsh, David J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Miller, John W
• Assistant Examiner(s): PARRY, CHRISTOPHER L
• Application Number:
  US10/125,259
• Publication Number:
  US 20030195891A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,814 Days
• Field of Search: 725/9, 725/13, 725/24, 725 28- 29, 725/32, 725/46, 725/61, 725/45
• US Class Current: 725/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4665 involving classification methods, e.g. Decision trees
• 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 7/165 Centralised control of user terminal subsequent to an upstream request signal H04N7/17345; Registering at central by two-way working H04N7/17309

Abstract

A media classification system receives media content descriptions from one or more description providers. The media classification system generates a description of media content based on descriptions of the media content received from one or more description providers. The descriptions describe the media content in terms of degrees. The media classification system may generate a composite description based on the received media content descriptions. The media classification system provides the descriptions, in terms of degrees, to one or more program data providers.

Claims

1. A method for describing media content implemented by a computing device including one or more processors, the method comprising:

receiving from a first provider, a first description of a media content, wherein the first description identifies a first genre associated with the media content;

receiving from a second provider, a second description of a media content, wherein the second description identifies a second genre associated with the media content;

determining a first trust level associated with the first provider and a second trust level associated with the second provider;

utilizing the one or more processors for calculating first and second degree values based on the first and second trust levels, wherein the first and second degrees indicate how related the first and second genres are to the media content relative to one another; and

providing for a user, a description of the media content, wherein the description of the media content comprises the first and second degrees and the corresponding first and second genres.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein each genre is selected from a group of genres consisting of action, adventure, horror, comedy, death, mystery, police involvement, thriller, political intrigue, romance, science fiction, period setting, lives drama, sports interest, animal interest, medical interest, legal interest, religious interest, historical interest, war interest, epic production, fantasy folklore, musical, western, monsters, teenage college, ethnic interest, and soap.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the determining comprises:

receiving a text associated with the media content; and

identifying one or more genres associated with keywords in the text.

4. The method as recited in claim 3, wherein the text comprises at least one of a description of the media content and a script associated with the media content.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the first and second degrees are numerical.

6. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the sum of the numbers associated with the genres is 100.

7. A method implemented by a computing device including one or more processors, the method comprising:

receiving a first description that identifies a first genre associated with media content and a second description that identifies a second genre associated with the media content, wherein the first and second genres respectively represent first and second types of media content;

determining a first trust level associated with a first description provider from which the first description is received;

determining a second trust level associated with a second description provider from which the second description is received;

utilizing the one or more processors for determining a first degree based on the first trust level and a second degree based on the second trust level;

assigning the first degree to the first genre and the second degree to the second genre to indicate how relative the first and second genres are to the media content; and

providing for display, a representation of the media content, wherein the representation of the media content comprises an indication of how relative the first and second genres are to the media content.

8. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein each genre is selected from a group of genre comprising action, adventure, horror, comedy, death, mystery, police involvement, thriller, political intrigue, romance, science fiction, period setting, lives drama, sports interest, animal interest, medical interest, legal interest, religious interest, historical interest, war interest, epic production, fantasy folklore, musical, western, monsters, teenage college, ethnic interest, and soap.

9. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the determining a first degree based on the first trust level and a second degree based on the second trust level comprises:

multiplying a number by the first trust level to produce the first degree; and

multiplying the number by the second trust level to produce the second degree.

10. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the first and second trust levels are numerical, and wherein the determining a first degree based on the first trust level and a second degree based on the second trust level comprises:

calculating a preliminary first degree by multiplying the first trust level by 100;

calculating a preliminary second degree by multiplying the second trust level by 100;

calculating the first degree by dividing a product of the preliminary first degree and 100 by a sum of the preliminary first degree and the preliminary second degree; and

calculating the second degree by dividing a product of the preliminary second degree and 100 by the sum of the preliminary first degree and the preliminary second degree.

11. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the first and second degrees are numerical.

12. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein the first degree and second degree are identical, indicating that the media content is equally associated with the first and second genre.

13. The method as recited in claim 7, further comprising:

receiving a third description that identifies the second genre associated with the media content.

14. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein:

the receiving a third description comprises receiving the third description from a third description provider, the third description provider being associated with a third trust level;

the assigning comprises determining the first degree based on the first trust level and the second degree based on the second and third trust levels.

15. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the first and second trust levels are numerical, and wherein the determining comprises:

calculating a preliminary first degree by multiplying the first trust level by 100;

calculating a preliminary second degree by multiplying a sum of the second trust level and the third trust level by 100;

calculating the first degree by dividing a product of the preliminary first degree and 100 by a sum of the preliminary first degree and the preliminary second degree; and

calculating the second degree by dividing a product of the preliminary second degree and 100 by the sum of the preliminary first degree and the preliminary second degree.

16. A method implemented in a computing device including one or more processors, comprising:

receiving a plurality of descriptions associated with media content from a plurality of description providers, each description indicating one or more genres associated with the media content, wherein each of the genres represent a program type;

utilizing the one or more processors for assigning a relative degree to each of the genres to indicate how related each genre is to the media content relative to another genre, wherein the relative degree assigned to each genre is based on a trust level associated with a description provider that provided a description that indicates the genre; and

displaying for a user, the relative degree that was assigned to each of the genres.

17. The method as recited in claim 16, wherein each genre is selected from a group of genres comprising action, adventure, horror, comedy, death, mystery, police involvement, thriller, political intrigue, romance, science fiction, period setting, lives drama, sports interest, animal interest, medical interest, legal interest, religious interest, historical interest, war interest, epic production, fantasy folklore, musical, western, monsters, teenage college, ethnic interest, and soap.

18. The method as recited in claim 16, wherein each description further indicates a degree associated with each of the one or more genres, and wherein the assigning comprises:

calculating a preliminary degree associated with each genre according to the equation;

$P_G=\underset{X=1}{\overset{n}{\sum <br><br>}}<br><br>\left(G_X*T_X\right)$

where;

P_G is a preliminary degree associated with a G^th genre;

G_x is a degree associated with the G^th genre as indicated by the description of the media content received from an X^th description provider;

n is a number of descriptions of the media content; and

T_x is a trust level associated with the X^th description provider; and

calculating a relative degree associated with each genre according to the equation;

$D_G=\frac{\left(P_G*100\right)}{\underset{X=1}{\overset{m}{\sum <br><br>}}<br><br>P_X}$

where;

D_G is a relative degree associated with the G^th genre; and

m is a number of genre associated with the media content.

19. A media classification system comprising:

a processor;

a memory;

a media description repository maintained in the memory and executed on the processor, the media description repository comprising;

a media identification class configured to represent media content;

a provider class configured to represent providers and associated trust levels;

a genre degree class configured to represent descriptions of media content in terms of genre degrees, wherein a genre degree indicates a degree to which the media content is associated with a particular genre;

an association between the media identification class and the genre degrees class that represents a description of a media content; and

an association between the provider class and the genre degrees class that represents a description of media content received from a description provider.

20. A system comprising:

a description provider interface to receive a plurality of descriptions of a media content from a plurality of description providers, wherein each of the description providers has an associated trust level; and

a composite generator to generate a composite description of the media content based on the plurality of descriptions of the media content and the trust levels associated with each of the plurality of description providers, the composite description comprising relative degrees to which the media content relates to each of a plurality of genres.

21. The system as recited in claim 20, wherein the relative degrees are numeric.

22. The system as recited in claim 21, wherein the sum of the relative degrees is 100.

23. The system as recited in claim 20, wherein each of the plurality of genres is selected from a group of genres comprising action, adventure, horror, comedy, death, mystery, police involvement, thriller, political intrigue, romance, science fiction, period setting, lives drama, sports interest, animal interest, medical interest, legal interest, religious interest, historical interest, war interest, epic production, fantasy folklore, musical, western, monsters, teenage college, ethnic interest, and soap.

24. The system as recited in claim 20, further comprising a description provider data repository to associate a trust level with a description provider, and wherein the relative degrees are based on the trust level.

25. The system as recited in claim 20, further comprising a description data repository to store the one or more descriptions of media content and to store the composite description of the media content.

26. The system as recited in claim 20, further comprising a program data provider interface to provide the composite description of the media content to a program data provider for display to a user through an electronic programming guide.

27. The system as recited in claim 20, further comprising a user interface component to facilitate receiving a description of the media content.

28. One or more computer-readable media encoded with instructions that, when executed by a computing system, direct the computing system to execute a method comprising:

receiving, from a first provider having a first trust level, a first description of media content that identifies a first genre associated with the media content;

receiving, from a second provider having a second trust level, a second description of the media content that identifies a second genre associated with the media content; and

assigning a first degree to the first genre and a second degree to the second genre, wherein the first and second genres respectively provide first and second program type categories, and wherein the first degree is based on the first trust level and the second degree is based on the second trust level.

29. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 28, wherein the first degree and the second degree are the same, indicating that the media content is equally associated with the first and second genre.

30. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 28, wherein the first and second degrees are numeric, the first degree comprises a number multiplied by the first trust level, and the second degree comprises the number multiplied by the second trust level.

31. The one or more computer readable media as recited in claim 28, further encoded with instructions that, when executed, direct the computing system to assign a first degree to the first genre and a second degree to the second genre by directing the computing system to:

calculate a preliminary first degree by multiplying the first trust level by a number;

calculate a preliminary second degree by multiplying the second trust level by the number;

calculate the first degree by multiplying the preliminary first degree by the number and subsequently dividing the result by the sum of the preliminary first degree and the preliminary second degree; and

calculate the second degree by multiplying the preliminary second degree by the number and subsequently dividing the result by the sum of the preliminary first degree and the preliminary second degree.

32. The one or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 28, wherein the method further comprises:

a third description of the media content from a third description provider, the third description provider having an associated third trust level,

wherein the first degree is based on the first trust level and the second degree is based on the second and third trust levels.

33. The one or more computer readable media as recited in claim 32, further encoded with instructions that, when executed, direct the computing system to assign a first degree to the first genre and a second degree to the second genre by directing the computing system to:

calculate a preliminary first degree by multiplying the first trust level by a number;

calculate a preliminary second degree by multiplying the sum of the second trust level and the third trust level by the number;

calculate the first degree by multiplying the preliminary first degree by the number and subsequently dividing the result by the sum of the preliminary first degree and the preliminary second degree; and

calculate the second degree by multiplying the preliminary second degree by the number and subsequently dividing the result by the sum of the preliminary first degree and the preliminary second degree.

34. One or more computer-readable media encoded with instructions that, when executed by a computing system, direct the computing system to execute a method comprising:

receiving a plurality of descriptions of media content from a plurality of description providers, with individual ones of the descriptions indicating one or more genre associated with the media content, each of the description providers having an associated trust level, wherein each of the one or more genres represents a program type;

calculating a preliminary degree associated with each genre according to the equation;

$P_G=\underset{X=1}{\overset{n}{\sum <br><br>}}<br><br>\left(G_X*T_X\right)$

where;

P_G is a preliminary degree associated with a G^th genre;

G_x is a degree associated with the G^th genre as indicated by the description of the media content received from an X^th description provider;

n is a number of descriptions of the media content; and

T_x is a trust level associated with the X^th description provider; and

calculating a relative degree associated with each genre according to the equation;

$D_G=\frac{\left(P_G*100\right)}{\underset{X=1}{\overset{m}{\sum <br><br>}}<br><br>P_X}$

where;

D_G is a relative degree associated with the G^th genre; and

m is a number of genre associated with the media content.