Systems and methods for dynamic conversion of web content to an interactive walled garden program

• US 8,225,367 B2
• Filed: 01/31/2008
• Issued: 07/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ludvig, Edward A., Logue, Jay D., Sandke, Steven R., Feinberg, Brian K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kumar, Pankaj
• Assistant Examiner(s): MENGESHA, MULUGETA A
• Application Number:
  US12/023,875
• Publication Number:
  US 20080141325A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,629 Days
• Field of Search: 725 93- 97, 725114-116, 725/110
• US Class Current: 725/114
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2355 involving reformatting operations of additional data, e.g. HTML pages optimising the visualization of content for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/9577; tracking of instant messages H04L51/234; media packet handling at the source H04L65/762
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4402 involving reformatting operations of video signals for household redistribution, storage or real-time display details of conversion of video standards at pixel level H04N7/01; video transcoding H04N19/40; adapting incoming signals to the display format of the display terminal G09G5/005; media handling at the source in data packet switching networks H04L65/764
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4725 using interactive regions of the image, e.g. hot spots details of information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8543 using a description language, e.g. Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group [MHEG], eXtensible Markup Language [XML] information retrieval of semistructured data, the underlying structure being taken into account, e.g. mark-up language structure data G06F16/80
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8545 for generating interactive applications
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

Systems and methods to dynamically convert Web content to an interactive program for display on resource constrained television clients are described. In particular, a head-end server in a digital television entertainment system downloads the Web content from an external data source. The head-end server dynamically transcodes the downloaded content into an interactive walled garden program (iWGP) that includes MPEG stills and metadata for delivery to a client in the television entertainment system.

Claims

1. In a television entertainment infrastructure, a head-end server comprising:

one or more processors;

a memory;

a data input component maintained in the memory and executed on the one or more processors to;

identify an address corresponding to an external data source and source content, the source content being in an HTML data format; and

download the source content from the external data source; and

a conversion component maintained in the memory and executed on the one or more processors to;

determine a structure of the source content based at least in part on a document object model, the structure of the source content being transcoded by extracting a location and a shape of hot-spots associated with the source content by searching the document object model for anchor tags and client-side image maps, the location and shape of the hot-spots being stored in metadata associated with the source content;

automatically convert the structure of the source content into an interactive walled garden program (iWGP), the iWGP being a navigable page tree that includes multiple MPEG stills and metadata for navigating the MPEG stills, the iWGP for broadcast delivery to a client in the television entertainment infrastructure; and

add multiple instances of a more frequently accessed MPEG still of the multiple MPEG stills to a transport carousel at predetermined spaced-apart locations, a priority assigned to the more frequently accessed MPEG still determining a frequency with which the more frequently accessed MPEG still appears in the transport carousel.

2. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the source content exhibits transitive closure.

3. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the metadata includes a link to a different iWGP such that the client can be used to navigate from the iWGP to the different iWGP.

4. A head-end server as recited in claim 3, wherein the link indicates a digital service corresponding to the different iWGP and target metadata for the different iWGP.

5. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the client comprises a set-top box.

6. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the metadata describes structure and contents for an interaction model associated with the multiple MPEG stills.

7. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the conversion component communicates media service organization (MSO) and/or subscriber data to the external data source for use by the external data source to localize the source content.

8. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the conversion component generates a plurality of different stills over time from a single interface page of the source content, the interface page comprising attributes that change over time.

9. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the data input component configures the broadcast ready data to indicate a program name, an iWGP transport rate, a parental control rating, an identifier that maps a digital service to iWGP, an MPEG program number at which the iWGP is being broadcast, and/or a program broadcast frequency.

10. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the conversion component:

identifies a picture quality attribute; and

encodes a picture component from the source content into a still of the multiple MPEG stills such that the still is compressed according to the picture quality attribute.

11. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the data input component:

delivers video components of the iWGP to the client over an in-band communication channel; and

delivers metadata to the client over an in-band or out-of-band communication channel, the metadata corresponding to an interaction model for the video components.

12. A method comprising:

identifying, by a head-end server, an external data source and corresponding source content;

downloading the source content from the external data source;

determining a structure of the source content based at least in part on a document object model and transcoding the structure by extracting a location and a shape of hot-spots associated with the source content by searching the document object model for anchor tags or client-side image maps, the location and shape of the hot-spots being stored in metadata associated with the source content;

converting the source content into an interactive walled garden program (iWGP), the iWGP including a plurality of MPEG stills, metadata for navigating between the plurality of MPEG stills, and audio associated with the plurality of MPEG stills;

adding multiple instances of a particular one of the plurality of MPEG stills that is more frequently accessed than other MPEG stills to a transport carousel system; and

distancing the multiple instances of the MPEG still a predetermined space from each other in the transport carousel system.

13. A method as recited in claim 12, further comprising delivering the iWGP to a client in a television entertainment infrastructure.

14. A method as recited in claim 12, further comprising assigning a priority to the MPEG still, the priority determining a frequency with which the MPEG still will appear in the transport carousel system.

15. A method as recited in claim 12, further comprising editing the iWGP to add or remove content from the iWGP.

16. A system comprising:

a processor one or more processors;

a memory;

a data input component maintained in the memory and executed on the one or more processors to;

identifies an address corresponding to an external data source and source content, the source content being in an HTML data format; and

downloads the source content from the external data source; and

a conversion component maintained in the memory and executed on the one or more processors to;

determine a structure of the source content based at least in part on a document object model that is indicated by the source content, the structure of the source content being transcoded by extracting a location and a shape of hot-spots associated with the source content by searching the document object model for anchor tags and client-side image maps, the location and shape of the hot-spots being stored in metadata associated with the source content;

automatically convert the source content into an interactive walled garden program (iWGP), the iWGP being a navigable page tree that includes multiple MPEG stills, metadata for navigating the MPEG stills, and audio associated with the multiple MPEG stills, the iWGP being delivered to a client in the television entertainment infrastructure;

add multiple instances of a more frequently accessed MPEG still of the multiple MPEG stills to a transport carousel system at predetermined spaced-apart locations, a priority assigned to the more frequently accessed MPEG still determining a frequency with which the more frequently accessed MPEG still appears in the transport carousel system; and

reduce a latency associated with the more frequently accessed MPEG still by increasing the frequency with which the more frequently accessed MPEG still appears in the transport carousel system and is delivered to one or more clients in the television entertainment infrastructure.

17. A system as recited in claim 16, wherein the more frequently accessed MPEG still is manually or automatically added to the transport carousel system.

18. A system as recited in claim 16, wherein the priority assigned to the more frequently accessed MPEG still corresponds to an acquisition latency of the more frequently accessed MPEG still.

19. A system as recited in claim 16, wherein the metadata includes a link to a different iWGP such that the client can be used to navigate from the iWGP to the different iWGP.