Multiple media vendor support

• US 7,774,343 B2
• Filed: 04/15/2002
• Issued: 08/10/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/15/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Thiagarajan, Balaji, Peechara, Arvind Kumar
• Primary Examiner(s): BOCCIO, VINCENT F
• Application Number:
  US10/123,496
• Publication Number:
  US 20030196204A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,039 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26, 707/1, 707/100, 707/999.104, 707/736, 707/805, 725/87, 725/93
• US Class Current: 707/736
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2181 comprising remotely distributed storage units, e.g. when movies are replicated over a plurality of video servers distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2393 involving handling client requests scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2665 Gathering content from different sources, e.g. Internet and satellite
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/426 Internal components of the client ; Characteristics thereof H04N5/44 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; 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 21/454 Content or additional data filtering, e.g. blocking advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6581 Reference data, e.g. a movie identifier for ordering a movie or a product identifier in a home shopping application
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8352 involving content or source identification data, e.g. Unique Material Identifier [UMID]
• 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 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A content distribution system receives data describing media content available from one or more vendors. The content distribution system generates data that describes an offer and associates the media content data with the offer. The content distribution system provides data describing an offer to a client device. The client device receives a request for a media content offer. The media content offer may include one or more instances of media content. Each instance of media content is available from a media vendor. For each media content instance associated with the offer, the client determines a vendor able to provide the media content, and submits a request for the media content to the vendor.

Claims

1. A method implemented by a television entertainment server system comprising:

receiving by a video-on-demand server system, data that identifies a first media content that is available on-demand from a first on-demand vendor;

receiving by a video-on-demand server system, data that identifies a second media content that is available on-demand from a second on-demand vendor;

generating data describing a single distinct offer comprising the first and second media content that is available on-demand;

associating the data that identifies the first media content and the data that identifies the second media content with the data describing the single distinct offer;

transmitting the single distinct offer to a client device;

receiving from the client device a selection of the single distinct offer;

in the event a particular one of the first media content vendor or the second media content vendor requires a software component installed on the client device to facilitate the delivery media content to the client device;

transmitting to the client device a software component associated with a particular media content vendor; and

transmitting the first and second media content to the client device.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the associating comprises populating a data structure that relates media content data with offer data.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the data structure is implemented as at least one XML file.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the data structure is implemented as a relational database.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the data that identifies the first media content comprises at least one of a content identifier, a content title, a content description, a content duration, a release year, a content categorization, a content rating, a content language, a content type, and an associated content identifier.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the data that identifies the first media content further comprises at least one of a vendor identifier, a vendor name, a vendor-specific request format, a bitrate, a filesize, a format, and a format conversion type.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the data describing the offer comprises at least one of an offer identifier, an offer type, an offer state, an offer title, an offer description, a cost, a currency, a start time, an end time, a viewing duration, a rental duration, a blocked hours indicator, and an operations allowed indicator.

8. A method of data management implemented by an on-demand television media server system, the method comprising:

modeling by the server system, offers for on-demand television media content with a database schema;

representing on-demand media content by a content class in the database schema;

representing terms of on-demand media content availability by an offer class in the database schema;

representing vendor-specific content distribution data by a content instance class in the database schema; and

creating an association between the content class, the content instance class, and the offer class, the association representing at least one distinct offer the distinct offer comprising a plurality of on-demand media content available from a plurality of media content vendors.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the content class represents at least one of a content identifier, a content title, a content description, a content duration, a release year, a content categorization, a content rating, a content language, a content type, and an associated content identifier, associated with the on-demand media content.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the terms of on-demand media content availability comprise at least one of a plurality of terms selected from a list of terms, the list of terms comprising:

an offer identifier,

an offer type,

an offer state,

an offer title,

an offer description,

a cost,

a currency,

a start time,

an end time,

a viewing duration,

a rental duration,

a blocked hours indicator,

an operations allowed indicator,

a purchase time,

a viewing duration elapsed,

and a receipt identifier.

11. The method of claim 8 wherein the vendor-specific content distribution data comprises at least one of a plurality of content distribution data types selected from a list of data types, the list of data types comprising:

a content identifier,

an offer identifier,

a vendor identifier,

a vendor name,

a vendor-specific request format,

a bitrate,

a filesize,

a format,

a format conversion type, and

a channel number.

12. A method implemented by a television entertainment system client comprising:

identifying a plurality of on-demand media vendors from which a client device has been authorized to receive on-demand media content;

determining whether the client device is currently authorized to receive on-demand media content from a particular one of the plurality of on-demand media vendors; and

in an event that the client device is not currently authorized to receive on-demand media content from the particular on-demand media vendor, instructing the client device to deactivate a software component associated with the particular on-demand media vendor, while maintaining an active software component associated with another particular one of the plurality of on-demand media vendors.

13. A computer system configured to provide a vendor interface,

the computer system comprising:

at least one processor,

at least one memory;

at least one computer readable storage medium;

the vendor interface configured to;

receive data that identifies a first on-demand media content that is available on-demand from a on-demand media vendor; and

receive data that identifies a second on-demand media content that is available on-demand from a second on-demand media vendor, the second on-demand media vendor being a different on-demand media vendor from the on-demand media vendor of the first on-demand media content; and

a data processor configured to;

generate data representing terms of an on-demand media offer; and

associate the data that identifies the first and second on-demand media content with the data representing terms of an on-demand media offer, such that the on-demand media offer represents a single distinct on-demand media offer to provide both the first and the second on-demand media content.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the data processor is configured to associate the data identifying the first and second media content with the data representing terms of an offer by populating a data structure that relates first and second media content data with offer data.

15. One or more computer-readable storage media comprising computer executable instructions that, when executed, direct a computing system to:

receive data that identifies first and second media content that is available on-demand from first and second on-demand media providers, respectively;

generate data describing a single distinct offer comprising the first and second media content; and

populate a data structure that associates the data that identifies the first and second media content with the data describing the single distinct offer, such that the single distinct offer is an offer to provide both the first and second media content on-demand via a television entertainment system.

16. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 15 wherein the data structure is implemented as one or more XML files.

17. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 15 wherein the data that identifies the media content comprises at least one of a content identifier, a content title, a content description, a content duration, a release year, a content categorization, a content rating, a content language, a content type, and an associated content identifier.

18. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 17 wherein the data that identifies the media content further comprises at least one of a vendor identifier, a vendor name, a vendor-specific request format, a bitrate, a filesize, a format, and a format conversion type.

19. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 15 wherein the data describing the offer comprises at least one of an offer identifier, an offer type, an offer state, an offer title, an offer description, a cost, a currency, a start time, an end time, a viewing duration, a rental duration, a blocked hours indicator, and an operations allowed indicator.

20. A method implemented by a television entertainment system server, the method comprising:

maintaining a library of multiple vendor software components for installation at a client device to facilitate generation by the client device of vendor-specific on-demand media requests, the library including vendor software components associated with different on-demand media vendors;

receiving a vendor software component that is not currently in the library; and

adding the vendor software component to the library for subsequent distribution to a client device;

modeling offers for on-demand media content with a database schema whereby;

media content that is available on-demand is represented by a content class;

terms of media content availability is represented by an offer class;

vendor-specific content distribution data is represented by a content instance class; and

an association between the content class, the content instance class, and the offer class represents individual distinct offers of a plurality of on-demand media content, each of the particular content available from one of a plurality of vendors;

receiving at the server;

media data that identifies media content that is available on-demand; and

vendor data that identifies distribution data associated with a particular vendor from which a particular media content identified by the media data is available;

storing the media data according to the content class;

storing the particular vendor data according to the content instance class;

generating data describing an offer to provide the plurality of media content from the plurality of vendors to a client device;

storing the data describing a particular offer according to the offer class;

transmitting to a client device;

a particular one of the vendor software components that is associated with a particular on-demand media vendor from which a particular on-demand media content identified by the media content is available; and

a representation of the offer, such that;

the offer is presented to a user via the client device; and

the client device, in response to a user request to purchase the on-demand media offer, interfaces with the each of the particular vendors from which the media content is available via the particular one of the vendor software components to access the on-demand media content associated with the on-demand media offer.