Television advertisement monitoring system

• US 8,209,713 B1
• Filed: 07/11/2008
• Issued: 06/26/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/11/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DIRECTV, LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: The DIRECTV Group, Inc. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Arsenault, Robert G., Lai, Timothy
• Primary Examiner(s): Bui, Kieu Oanh T
• Application Number:
  US12/172,126
• Time in Patent Office: 1,446 Days
• Field of Search: 725/9, 725/10, 725/14, 725/18, 725 20- 22
• US Class Current: 725/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/375 Commercial
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/58 of audio determination or detection of speech characteristics in general G10L25/00; speech recognition in general G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23424 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4383 Accessing a communication channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/442 Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. detecting the failure of a recording device, monitoring the downstream bandwidth, the number of times a movie has been viewed, the storage space available from the internal hard disk arrangements for monitoring broadcast services or broadcast-related services H04H60/29; arrangements for identifying or recognising characteristics with a direct linkage to broadcast information H04H60/35; monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; monitoring in wireless networks H04W24/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6193 involving transmission via a satellite arrangements for data linking, networking or transporting, or for controlling an end to end session in a satellite broadcast system H04B7/18526
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6405 Multicasting data broadcast and multicast in packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8126 involving additional data, e.g. news, sports, stocks, weather forecasts
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

The present invention discloses systems for monitoring advertisements. A system for monitoring advertisements in a broadcast television channel in accordance with the present invention comprises a sound level monitor for monitoring an audio level of a first broadcast television channel, a data tagger, coupled to the sound level monitor, for tagging a start and an end of an advertisement segment within the first broadcast television channel, and a receiver, wherein when the receiver is first tuned to the first broadcast channel and then tuned to a second broadcast channel, an on-screen display is displayed on a monitor displaying the second broadcast channel, the OSD being displayed when the end of the advertisement segment within the first broadcast channel occurs.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring advertisements in a broadcast television channel, comprising:

a sound level monitor for monitoring an audio level of a first broadcast television channel;

a data tagger, coupled to the sound level monitor, for tagging a start and an end of an advertisement segment within the first broadcast television channel; and

a receiver, wherein when the receiver is first tuned to the first broadcast television channel and then tuned to a second broadcast television channel the receiver monitors the first broadcast television channel for the tag at the end of the advertisement segment within the first broadcast television channel while tuned to the second broadcast television channel, and an on-screen display (OSD) is displayed on a monitor displaying the second broadcast television channel, the OSD being displayed during viewing of the second broadcast television channel when the end of the advertisement segment within the first broadcast television channel occurs.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the start and end of the advertisement segment are determined by the sound level monitor detecting audio compression.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the start and end of the advertisement segment are determined by the sound level monitor detecting a reshaped sound condition.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the start and the end of the advertisement segment are marked using a Vertical Blanking Interval.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the start and the end of the advertisement segment are marked using an Entitlement Management Message.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the start and the end of the advertisement segment are marked using a Conditional Access Packet.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the start and the end of the advertisement segment are marked using an internet connection.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a video recorder, coupled to the receiver, wherein the recorder uses the tagged start and the tagged end of the advertisement segment during recording.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the video recorder skips the advertisement segment during recording.

10. A system for monitoring portions of data provided in a broadcast television channel, comprising:

a sound level monitor for monitoring an audio condition of a first broadcast television channel, wherein a first mark is placed at a start of the audio condition and a second mark is placed at an end of the audio condition; and

a receiver, wherein when the receiver is first tuned to the first broadcast television channel and then tuned to a second broadcast television channel the receiver monitors the first broadcast television channel for the second mark while tuned to the second broadcast television channel, and displays an on-screen display on a monitor during viewing of the second broadcast television channel when the second mark occurs within the first broadcast television channel.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the audio condition is audio compression.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the audio condition is a reshaped sound condition.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the start of the audio condition and the end of the audio condition are marked using a Vertical Blanking Interval.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the start of the audio condition and the end of the audio condition are marked using an Entitlement Management Message.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the start of the audio condition and the end of the audio condition are marked using a Conditional Access Packet.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the start of the audio condition and the end of the audio condition are marked using an internet connection.

17. The system of claim 10, further comprising a video recorder, coupled to the receiver, wherein the recorder uses the start and the end of the audio condition during recording.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the video recorder does not record the broadcast television channel between the start and the end of the audio condition.