Program recommendation system, program view terminal, program view program, program view method, program recommendation server, program recommendation program, and program recommendation method

• US 8,296,803 B2
• Filed: 08/09/2007
• Issued: 10/23/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Veriva Systems Sendirian Berhad
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Yamaoka, Masaru, Mukai, Tsutomu, Ikeda, Yoichi, Sato, Takahiro, Oshima, Mitsuaki, Iwasa, Takuma, Kutsumi, Hiroshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Saltarelli, Dominic D
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHUNG, JASON
• Application Number:
  US12/377,089
• Publication Number:
  US 20100169927A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,902 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 725/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/252 Processing of multiple end-users' preferences to derive collaborative data
• 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 21/4532 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 21/4661 Deriving a combined profile for a plurality of end-users of the same client, e.g. for family members within a home user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4667 Processing of monitored end-user data, e.g. trend analysis based on the log file of viewer selections
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4755 for defining user preferences, e.g. favourite actors or genre retrieval personalisation and generation of user profiles for the retrieval of video data G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• 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 7/17336 Handling of requests in head-ends

Abstract

An object of the invention is to eliminate a program having a high general preference, and recommend a program customized to a preference of a specific user. A reserved information receiver (230) in a program recommendation server (3) receives reserved information transmitted by a program viewing terminal. A reserved information DB (235) stores the reserved information with respect to each of the users. A community reserved information statistics section (236) defines the users as a first group, based on the received reserved information, and the reserved information stored with respect to each of the users. A total user reserved information statistics section (237) defines the users as a second group including the first group. A recommended program creator (239) generates recommended information customized to the first group, based on an aggregate calculation result of the reserved information of the users belonging to the first group, and an aggregate calculation result of the reserved information of the users belonging to the second group. A recommendation transmitter (240) transmits the recommended information to the program viewing terminal. The program viewing terminal reproduces a program based on the recommended information.

Claims

1. A program recommendation system comprising:

a program viewing terminal for allowing a user to view a received program; and

a program recommendation server communicatively connected to the program viewing terminal via a network, and adapted for acquiring manipulation information representing manipulation of the user with respect to the program from the program viewing terminal to create recommended information relating to a program matching with a preference of the user depending on the manipulation information, wherein

the program viewing terminal includes;

a manipulation accepting section for accepting input of the manipulation information; and

a manipulation information transmitting section for transmitting the manipulation information accepted by the manipulation accepting section to the program recommendation server,

the program recommendation server includes;

a manipulation information receiving section for receiving the manipulation information transmitted by the manipulation information transmitting section;

a manipulation information storing section for storing the manipulation information received by the manipulation information receiving section with respect to each of the users;

a first grouping section for defining the user as a first group, based on the manipulation information received by the manipulation information receiving section, and the manipulation information stored in the manipulation information storing section with respect to each of the users;

a second grouping section for defining the user as a second group, the second group including the first group defined by the first grouping section;

a recommended information generating section for generating the recommended information customized to the first group, based on an aggregate calculation result of the manipulation information of the users belonging to the first group defined by the first grouping section, and an aggregate calculation result of the manipulation information of the users belonging to the second group defined by the second grouping section; and

a recommended information transmitting section for transmitting the recommended information generated by the recommended information generating section to the program viewing terminal, and

the program viewing terminal further includes;

a recommended information receiving section for receiving the recommended information transmitted by the recommended information transmitting section; and

a program controlling section for performing at least one of a selecting operation, a recording operation, a reproducing operation, and a deleting operation of a program, based on the recommended information received by the recommended information receiving section.

2. The program recommendation system according to claim 1, wherein

the program viewing terminal further includes a marking accepting section for accepting an operation of marking a reproducing position in the program by the user, and

the manipulation information includes marking time information representing a point of time corresponding to the reproducing position, in the program, marked by the marking accepting section.

3. The program recommendation system according to claim 2, wherein

the first grouping section extracts, from the manipulation information storing section, a user group having marking time information partially overlapped time-wise with the marking time information included in the manipulation information received by the manipulation information receiving section to define the user group as the first group.

4. The program recommendation system according to claim 1, wherein

the program is broadcast in a state that a display screen is divided into a plurality of areas,

the program viewing terminal further includes an area selection accepting section for accepting selection of at least one of the areas on the display screen by the user, and

the manipulation information includes time information, in the program, representing a point of time when the selected area is accepted by the area selection accepting section.

5. The program recommendation system according to claim 4, wherein

the recommended information includes area identification information for identifying the area selected by the user among the areas.

6. The program recommendation system according to claim 5, wherein

the first grouping section extracts, from the manipulation information storing section, a user group having area identification information identical to the area identification information included in the manipulation information received by the manipulation information receiving section to define the user group as the first group.

7. The program recommendation system according to claim 1, wherein

the program is broadcast in a state that a display screen is divided into a plurality of areas,

the program viewing terminal further includes an area selection accepting section for accepting selection of at least one of the areas on the display screen by the user, and

the manipulation information includes position information, on the display screen, corresponding to the selected area accepted by the area selection accepting section.

8. The program recommendation system according to claim 1, wherein

the recommended information includes reproducing start time information relating to a point of time of start of reproducing a program to be recommended.

9. The program recommendation system according to claim 1, wherein

the recommended information includes packet identification information for identifying a specific packet in a plurality of packets constituting a program to be recommended.

10. The program recommendation system according to claim 1, wherein

the first grouping section extracts, from the manipulation information storing section, a user group having manipulation information substantially equivalent to the manipulation information received by the manipulation information receiving section to define the user group as the first group.

11. The program recommendation system according to claim 1, wherein

the manipulation information includes program identification information for identifying a program with respect to which the user performs manipulation, and

the first grouping section extracts, from the manipulation information storing section, a user group having program identification information identical to the program identification information included in the manipulation information received by the manipulation information receiving section to define the user group as the first group.

12. The program recommendation system according to claim 1, wherein

the second grouping section defines all the users pre-registered in the program recommendation server as the second group.

13. The program recommendation system according to claim 1, wherein

the second grouping section defines the users having attribute information substantially equivalent to attribute information pre-entered by the users pre-registered in the program recommendation server, or attribute information extracted from the users pre-registered in the program recommendation server, as the second group.

14. The program recommendation system according to claim 1, wherein

the recommended information generating section normalizes the aggregate calculation result of the manipulation information in the first group by the number of users in the first group, normalizes the aggregate calculation result of the manipulation information in the second group by the number of users in the second group, and subtracts the aggregate calculation result of the second group obtained by normalization from the aggregate calculation result of the first group obtained by normalization to generate the recommended information customized to the first group based on the subtraction result.

15. The program recommendation system according to claim 1, wherein

the recommended information generating section calculates a “

tf”

(Term Frequency) of the manipulation information in the first group, calculates an “

idf”

(Inverse Document Frequency) of the manipulation information in the second group, calculates a tf·

idf value with respect to each of the manipulation information based on the “

tf” and

the “

idf”

, and generates the recommended information customized to the first group based on the tf·

idf value with respect to each of the manipulation information.