Systems and methods for searching based on information in commercials

• US 8,763,024 B2
• Filed: 04/23/2008
• Issued: 06/24/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/23/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: White, Scott, Cansler, James L., Scott, Charles
• Primary Examiner(s): Alata, Yassin
• Application Number:
  US12/107,886
• Publication Number:
  US 20090271817A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,253 Days
• Field of Search: 725 22- 24, 725 37- 61, 725/68, 725/85, 725/100, 725/131, 725136-139, 725/151, 725 18- 20, 725/32, 386249-250
• US Class Current: 725/22
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• 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 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• 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 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4821 using a grid, e.g. sorted out by channel and broadcast time
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4826 using recommendation lists, e.g. of programs or channels sorted out according to their score
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4828 for searching program descriptors retrieval of video data G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• 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

Abstract

A set top box includes a processor configured to detect a commercial and analyze the commercial to identify an advertised video content. The processor is further configured to search an electronic programming guide for availability of the video content and record the video content in response to a user input.

Claims

1. A set top box comprising:

a memory to store executable instructions; and

a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor when executing the instructions performs operations comprising;

detecting a commercial;

determining if the commercial contains one of metadata, close captioning information, recognizable text in a video component of the commercial, recognizable speech in an audio component of the commercial, or combination thereof;

in response to determining that the commercial contains metadata, identifying advertised video content based on the metadata;

in response to determining that the commercial does not contain metadata, but does contain close captioning information;

extracting close captioning text from the close captioning information of the commercial; and

identifying the advertised video content based on the close captioning text;

in response to determining that the commercial contains neither metadata nor close captioning information, but does contain optically recognizable text;

determining an optical character recognition of the optically recognizable text;

extracting recognized text from the optical character recognition of the optically recognizable text;

identifying the advertised video content based on the recognized text;

in response to determining that the commercial contains neither metadata, nor close captioning information, nor optically recognizable text, but does contain recognizable speech in the audio component of the commercial;

extracting speech-to-text converted text from the recognizable speech in the audio component of the commercial; and

identifying the advertised video content based on the speech-to-text converted text;

presenting a first search option to search for the advertised video content and a second search option to search for content similar to the advertised video content;

receiving an input corresponding to a selected one of the first search option and the second search option;

searching an electronic programming guide for availability of the advertised video content based on one of the metadata, the close captioning text, the recognized text, or the speech-to-text converted text and the selected one of the first search option and the second search option; and

recording the advertised video content in response to a user input.

2. The set top box of claim 1, wherein the identifying the advertised video content comprise using a signature of the commercial, the signature comprising a hash of digital information, and wherein the recording of the video content in response to the user input comprises scheduling a recording for the advertised video content that is available at a later time.

3. The set top box of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise analyzing the commercial for metadata of the commercial for identifying information including one of a title, a genre, a list of people associated with an advertised product, or a combination thereof, if the commercial contains metadata, and wherein the recording of the advertised video content in response to the user input comprises downloading of the advertised video content for purchase.

4. The set top box of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

isolating speech from audio of the commercial;

analyzing the commercial by extracting the speech from the audio of the commercial;

converting the speech to text information; and

analyzing the text if the commercial contains recognizable speech in the audio component.

5. The set top box of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise analyzing the commercial by performing optical character recognition on the video component of the commercial to extract the text from the video component of the commercial, which includes text indicating a channel and a time for a broadcast.

6. A set top box comprising:

a memory to store executable instructions; and

a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor when executing the instructions performs operations comprising;

detecting a commercial;

determining if the commercial contains one of metadata, close captioning information, recognizable speech in an audio component of the commercial, or a combination thereof;

in response to determining that the commercial contains metadata, identifying an advertised show based on the metadata;

in response to determining that the commercial does not contain metadata, but does contain close captioning information;

extracting close captioning text from the close captioning information of the commercial; and

identifying the advertised show based on the close captioning text;

in response to determining that the commercial contains neither metadata nor close captioning information, but does contain, within a video component of the commercial, optically recognizable text;

determining an optical character recognition of the optically recognizable text;

extracting recognized text from the optical character recognition of the optically recognizable text; and

identifying the advertised show based on the recognized text;

in response to determining that the commercial contains neither metadata, nor close captioning information, nor optically recognizable text, but does contain recognizable speech in the audio component of the commercial;

extracting speech-to-text converted text from the recognizable speech in the audio component of the commercial; and

identifying the advertised show based on the speech-to-text converted text;

presenting a first option to search for first video content related to the advertised show and a second option to search for second video content similar to the advertised show;

receiving an input corresponding to a selected of one of the first option and the second option;

searching for one of the first video content or the second video content based on the selected one of the first option and the second option; and

recording a resulting one of the first video content and the second video content in response to a user input.

7. The set top box of claim 6, wherein the identifying the advertised show comprise using a signature of the commercial, the signature comprising a hash of digital information of the commercial.

8. The set top box of claim 6, wherein the operations further comprise analyzing the commercial using closed-caption information of the commercial to identify information including a title and a channel of a broadcast if the commercial contains close caption information.

9. The set top box of claim 6, wherein the operations further comprise:

analyzing the commercial by extracting speech from audio of the commercial;

converting the speech to text; and

analyzing the text if the commercial contains recognizable speech in the audio component.

10. The set top box of claim 6, wherein the operations further comprise analyzing the commercial by performing optical character recognition on the video component of the commercial to extract the text from a video component of the commercial when the commercial fails to include one of metadata, close captioning information, or a combination thereof.

11. A method comprising:

detecting, by a machine comprising a processor, a commercial;

determining, by the machine, if the commercial contains one of metadata, recognizable text in a video component of the commercial, recognizable speech

in an audio component of the commercial, or a combination thereof;

in response to determining that the commercial contains metadata, identifying, by the machine, advertised video content based on the metadata;

in response to determining that the commercial does not contain metadata, but does contain close captioning information;

extracting, by the machine, close captioning text from close captioning information of the commercial; and

identifying, by the machine, the advertised video content based on the close captioning text;

in response to determining that the commercial contains neither metadata nor close captioning information, but does contain optically recognizable text;

determining, by the machine, an optical character recognition of the optically recognizable text;

extracting, by the machine, recognized text from the optical character recognition of the optically recognizable text;

identifying, by the machine, the advertised video content based on the recognized text;

in response to determining that the commercial contains neither metadata, nor close captioning information, nor optically recognizable text, but does contain recognizable speech in the audio component of the commercial;

extracting, by the machine, speech-to-text converted text from the recognizable speech in the audio component of the commercial; and

identifying, by the machine, the advertised video content based on the speech-to-text converted text; and

transmitting, by the machine, the commercial with the identifying information to enable a set top box to;

present a first option to search for the advertised video content and a second option to search for content similar to the advertised video content;

receive an input corresponding to a selected of one of the first option and the second option;

search an electronic programming guide for related video content according to the identifying information and the selected one of the first option and the second option; and

record the related video content.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the machine comprises a network element remotely located from the set top box, and wherein the related video content includes a show advertised in the commercial.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the related video content includes content similar the video content advertised in the commercial selected from a group consisting of content having a similar genre to the advertised video content, content associated with one of an actor or director participating in the advertised video content, previous episodes of a series comprising the advertised video content, an adaptation of the advertised video content, a commercial product, and combinations thereof.

14. A method performed by a network element comprising a processor, and remotely located from a set-top box, the method comprising:

detecting, by the network element, a commercial comprising advertised video content;

determining, by the network element, if the commercial contains one of metadata, recognizable text in a video component of the commercial, or recognizable speech in an audio component of the commercial;

in response to determining that the commercial contains metadata, identifying, by the network element, advertised video content based on the metadata;

in response to determining that the commercial does not contain metadata, but does contain close captioning information;

extracting, by the network element, close captioning text from close captioning information of the commercial; and

identifying, by the network element, the advertised video content based on the close captioning text;

in response to determining that the commercial contains neither metadata nor close captioning information, but does contain optically recognizable text;

determining, by the network element, an optical character recognition of the optically recognizable text;

extracting, by the network element, recognized text from the optical character recognition of the optically recognizable text;

identifying, by the network element, the advertised video content based on the recognized text;

in response to determining that the commercial contains neither metadata, nor close captioning information, nor optically recognizable text, but does contain recognizable speech in the audio component of the commercial;

extracting, by the network element, speech-to-text converted text from the recognizable speech in the audio component of the commercial; and

identifying, by the network element, the advertised video content based on the speech-to-text converted text;

wherein the identifying of the advertised video content enables the set top box to present a first option to search for video content determined according to the identifying information and a second option to search for video content similar to the identifying information; and

transmitting, by the network element, the commercial with the identifying information to the set top box, wherein the set top box is operable to receive an input corresponding to a selection of one of the first option and the second option, and to search an electronic programming guide for video content according to selected one of the first option and the second option, and the identifying information provided with the commercial by the network element.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the video content includes a show advertised in the commercial.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the content similar to the advertised video content comprises one of content having a similar genre to the advertised video content, content associated with one of an actor or director participating in the advertised video content, previous episodes of a series comprising the advertised video content, an adaptation of the advertised video content, a commercial product, or a combination thereof.

17. A method, comprising:

detecting, by a device comprising a processor, a commercial comprising advertised video content;

determining, by the device, if the commercial contains one of metadata, recognizable text in a video component of the commercial, or recognizable speech in an audio component of the commercial;

in response to determining that the commercial contains metadata, identifying, by the device, advertised video content based on the metadata;

in response to determining that the commercial does not contain metadata, but does contain close captioning information;

extracting, by the device, close captioning text from close captioning information of the commercial; and

identifying, by the device, the advertised video content based on the close captioning text;

in response to determining that the commercial contains neither metadata nor close captioning information, but does contain optically recognizable text;

determining, by the device, an optical character recognition of the optically recognizable text;

extracting, by the device, recognized text from the optical character recognition of the optically recognizable text;

identifying, by the device, the advertised video content based on the recognized text;

in response to determining that the commercial contains neither metadata, nor close captioning information, nor optically recognizable text, but does contain recognizable speech in the audio component of the commercial;

extracting, by the device, speech-to-text converted text from the recognizable speech in the audio component of the commercial; and

identifying, by the device, the advertised video content based on the speech-to-text converted text;

accessing, by the device, identifying information from a database according to a signature of the commercial and one of the metadata, the close captioning text, the recognized text, or the speech-to-text converted text;

presenting, by the device, a first option to search for the video content and a second option to search for content similar to the video content;

receiving an input corresponding to a selected of one of the first option and the second option;

searching, by the device, an electronic programming guide for video content according to the identifying information and the selected one of the first option and the second option;

identifying, by the device, video content responsive to the search; and

recording, by the device, the video content.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the video content includes a program advertised in the commercial.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the content similar to the advertised video content comprises one of content having a similar genre to the advertised video content, content associated with one of an actor or director participating in the advertised video content, previous episodes of a series comprising the advertised video content, an adaptation of the advertised video content, a commercial product, or a combination thereof.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the signature comprises a hash of digital information.