Playback terminal, time-of-day management method, and content playback system

• US 8,467,662 B2
• Filed: 11/27/2009
• Issued: 06/18/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Nishio, Kazutaka
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Thai
• Assistant Examiner(s): SMITH, STEPHEN R
• Application Number:
  US12/739,857
• Publication Number:
  US 20110222834A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,299 Days
• Field of Search: 386/248, 386/291, 386/326, 705/59, 713/501, 714/701, 726/26
• US Class Current: 386/248
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43072 of multiple content streams on the same device
• 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 21/4334 Recording operations recording of a television signal H04N5/76; arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4349 by extracting from data carousels, e.g. extraction of software modules from a DVB carousel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8355 involving usage data, e.g. number of copies or viewings allowed

Abstract

A playback terminal (10) prevents a problem that content cannot be viewed because of a time adjustment carelessly made to a clock by a user. The playback terminal (10) receives content and usage expiration information of the content from a content server (20) and plays back the content, the playback terminal including: a content storage unit (14) which stores the content; a content expiration information storage unit (15) which stores the usage expiration information; a clock unit (16) which manages time-of-day information; a clock setting instruction unit (12) which receives an entry of a time of day to be set to the clock unit (16); and a control unit (11) which rejects the entry from the clock setting instruction unit (12) or performs control so that the time-of-day information of the clock unit (16) is not updated to the time of day entered from the clock setting instruction unit (12), while the usage expiration information corresponding to the content stored in the content storage unit (14) is stored in the content expiration information storage unit (15).

Claims

1. A playback terminal which receives content from a content server and plays back the content, said playback terminal further receives usage expiration information corresponding to the content if the content has the usage expiration information, said playback terminal comprising:

a content storage unit configured to store the content;

a content expiration information storage unit configured to store the usage expiration information corresponding to the content if the content has the usage expiration information;

a clock unit configured to manage time-of-day information;

a clock setting instruction unit configured to receive an entry of a time of day to be set to said clock unit; and

a control unit configured to (i) determine whether or not the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is stored in said content expiration information storage unit, and (ii) reject the entry from said clock setting instruction unit or to perform control not to update the time-of-day information of said clock unit to the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit when it is determined that the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is stored in said content expiration information storage unit.

2. A playback terminal which receives content from a content server and plays back the content, said playback terminal further receives usage expiration information corresponding to the content if the content has usage expiration information, said playback terminal comprising:

a content storage unit configured to store the content;

a content expiration information storage unit configured to store the usage expiration information corresponding to the content if the content has the usage expiration information;

a clock unit configured to manage time-of-day information;

a clock setting instruction unit configured to receive an entry of a time of day to be set to said clock unit; and

a control unit configured to (i) determine whether or not the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is stored in said content expiration information storage unit, and (ii) perform control to update the time-of-day information of said clock unit based on the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit, (1) when it is determined that the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is stored in said content expiration information storage unit, when the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit is included in between times of day specified in the usage expiration information corresponding to the content stored in said content expiration information storage unit, and when a difference between the entered time of day and a current time of day managed by said clock unit is within a predetermined range, or (2) when it is determined that the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is not stored in said content expiration information storage unit.

3. A time-of-day management method for a playback terminal, said time-of-day management method comprising:

receiving (i) content from a content server and (ii) usage expiration information corresponding to the content if the content has the usage expiration information;

storing (i) the content into a storage unit and (ii) the usage expiration information corresponding to the content into the storage unit if the content has the usage expiration information;

managing time-of-day information;

determining whether or not the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is stored in the storage unit; and

rejecting a time-of-day setting instruction or performing control not to update the time-of-day information when said determining determines that the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is stored in the storage unit.

4. A time-of-day management method for a playback terminal, said time-of-day management method comprising:

receiving (i) content from a content server and (ii) usage expiration information corresponding to the content from the content server if the content has the usage expiration information;

storing (i) the content into a storage unit and (ii) storing the usage expiration information into the storage unit if the content has the usage expiration information;

managing time-of-day information;

determining whether or not the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is stored in the storage unit; and

updating the time-of-day information based on an entered time of day designated by a clock setting instruction, (1) when said determining determines that the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is stored in the storage unit, when the entered time of day is included in between times of day specified in the usage expiration information corresponding to the content, and when a difference between the entered time of day and a current time of day is within a predetermined range, or (2) when said determining determines that the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is not stored in the storage unit.

5. A content playback system comprising a content server and a playback terminal,

wherein said content server includes:

a storage unit configured to store content and usage expiration information corresponding to the content if the content has the usage expiration information; and

a sending unit configured to receive a request from said playback terminal and send (i) the content to said playback terminal and (ii) the usage expiration information corresponding to the content to said playback terminal if the content has the usage expiration information, and

wherein said playback terminal includes;

a receiving unit configured to receive (i) the content from the content server and (ii) the usage expiration information corresponding to the content from the content server if the content has the usage expiration information;

a content storage unit configured to store the content;

a content expiration information storage unit configured to store the usage expiration information corresponding to the content if the content has the usage expiration information;

a clock unit configured to manage time-of-day information;

a clock setting instruction unit configured to receive an entry of a time of day to be set to said clock unit; and

a control unit configured to (i) determine whether or not the usage expiration corresponding to the content is stored in the content expiration information storage unit, and (ii) reject the entry from said clock setting instruction unit or to perform control not to update the time-of-day information of said clock unit to the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit when it is determined that the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is stored in said content expiration information storage unit.

6. A content playback system comprising a content server and a playback terminal,

wherein said content server includes:

a storage unit configured to store content and usage expiration information corresponding to the content if the content has the usage expiration information; and

a sending unit configured to receive a request from said playback terminal and send (i) the content to said playback terminal and (ii) the usage expiration information corresponding to the content if the content has the usage expiration information, and wherein said playback terminal includes;

a receiving unit configured to receive (i) the content from said content server and (ii) the usage expiration information corresponding to the content from the content server if the content has the usage expiration information;

a content storage unit configured to store the content;

a content expiration information storage unit configured to store the usage expiration information corresponding to the content if the content has the usage expiration information;

a clock unit configured to manage time-of-day information;

a clock setting instruction unit configured to receive an entry of a time of day to be set to said clock unit; and

a control unit configured to (i) determine whether or not the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is stored in said content expiration information storage unit and (ii) perform control to update the time-of-day information of said clock unit based on the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit, (1) when it is determined that the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is stored in said content expiration information storage unit, when the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit is included in between times of day specified in the usage expiration information corresponding to the content stored in said content expiration information storage unit, and when a difference between the entered time of day and a current time of day managed by said clock unit is within a predetermined range, or (2) when it is determined that the usage expiration information corresponding to the content is not stored in said content expiration information storage unit.

7. A playback terminal which receives content and usage expiration information of the content from a content server and plays back the content, said playback terminal comprising:

a content storage unit configured to store the content;

a content expiration information storage unit configured to store the usage expiration information, the usage expiration information specifying a usage expiration period of the content stored in said content storage unit;

a clock unit configured to manage time-of-day information;

a clock setting instruction unit configured to receive an entry of a time of day to be set to said clock unit;

a determination unit to determine whether or not the usage expiration information has a limited expiration time; and

a control unit configured to;

(i) reject the entry from said clock setting instruction unit or to perform control not to update the time-of-day information of said clock unit to the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit when the usage expiration period specified by the usage expiration information corresponding to the content stored in said content storage unit is less than a predetermined period of time;

(ii) allow the entry from said clock setting instruction unit or to perform control to update the time-of-day information of said clock unit to the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit when the usage expiration period specified by the usage expiration information corresponding to the content stored in said content storage unit is greater than the predetermined period of time; and

(iii) allow the entry from said clock setting instruction unit or to perform control to update the time-of-day information of said clock unit to the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit when said determination unit determines that the usage expiration information does not have a limited expiration time.

8. A time-of-day management method for a playback terminal, said time-of-day management method comprising:

receiving content and usage expiration information of the content from a content server;

storing the content and the usage expiration information into a storage unit, the usage expiration information specifying a usage expiration period of the content stored in the storage unit;

managing time-of-day information;

determining whether or not the usage expiration information has a limited expiration time;

rejecting a time-of-day setting instruction or performing control not to update the time-of-day information when the usage expiration period specified by the usage expiration information stored in the storage unit is less than a predetermined period of time;

allowing the time-of-day setting instruction or performing control to update the time-of-day information when the usage expiration period specified by the usage expiration information stored in the storage unit is greater than the predetermined period of time, and

allowing the time-of-day setting instruction or performing control to update the time-of-day information when said determining determines that the usage expiration information does not have a limited expiration time.

9. A content playback system comprising a content server and a playback terminal,

wherein said content server includes:

a storage unit configured to store content and usage expiration information related to the content; and

a sending unit configured to receive a request from said playback terminal and send the content and the usage expiration information of the content to said playback terminal, and

wherein said playback terminal includes;

a receiving unit configured to receive the content and the usage expiration information of the content from said content server;

a content storage unit configured to store the content;

a content expiration information storage unit configured to store the usage expiration information, the usage expiration information specifying a usage expiration period of the content stored in said content storage unit;

a clock unit configured to manage time-of-day information;

a clock setting instruction unit configured to receive an entry of a time of day to be set to said clock unit;

a determination unit to determine whether or not the usage expiration information has a limited expiration time; and

a control unit configured to;

(i) reject the entry from said clock setting instruction unit or to perform control not to update the time-of-day information of said clock unit to the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit, when the usage expiration period specified by the usage expiration information corresponding to the content stored in said content storage unit is less than a predetermined period of time;

(ii) allow the entry from said clock setting instruction unit or to perform control to update the time-of-day information of said clock unit to the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit, when the usage expiration period specified by the usage expiration information corresponding to the content stored in said content storage unit is greater than the predetermined period of time; and

(iii) allow the entry from said clock setting instruction unit or to perform control to update the time-of-day information of said clock unit to the time of day entered from said clock setting instruction unit when said determination unit determines that the usage expiration information does not have a limited expiration time.