Methods and apparatus to measure exposure to streaming media

• US 9,357,261 B2
• Filed: 03/11/2013
• Issued: 05/31/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Original Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Inventors: Besehanic, Jan
• Primary Examiner(s): Lewis, Jonathan V
• Application Number:
  US13/793,959
• Publication Number:
  US 20140229629A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,177 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/29 Arrangements for monitoring broadcast services or broadcast-related services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/31 Arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/33 Arrangements for monitoring the users' behaviour or opinions
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/37 for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/40 for identifying broadcast time
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/43 for identifying broadcast channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/74 using programme related information, e.g. title, composer or interpreter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/564 Enhancement of application control based on intercepted application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/251 Learning process for intelligent management, e.g. learning user preferences for recommending movies details of learning user preferences for the retrieval of video data in a video database G06F16/739; computer systems using learning methods G06N3/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25883 being end-user demographical data, e.g. age, family status or address arrangements for identifying locations of users in broadcast systems H04H60/52
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44204 Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6175 involving transmission via Internet broadcast-related systems characterised by the transmission system being the Internet H04H60/82
• 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 21/8405 represented by keywords
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/60 for the sound signals

Abstract

Methods and apparatus to measure exposure to streaming media are disclosed herein. An example method includes demultiplexing a closed captioning transport stream from a media stream, the media stream intercepted intermediate a media device and a display. Metadata is extracted from the closed captioning transport stream. At least one of the metadata or data based on the metadata is exported to a media measurement server.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

intercepting, with a media monitor intermediate a media device and a display, a second transport stream including media output from the media device, the media monitor coupling the media device to the display, the second transport stream including a textual representation of a watermark obtained by the media device from a timed text track associated with but separate from a first transport stream received by the media device;

accessing, at the media monitor, the textual representation of the watermark from the intercepted second transport stream, the textual representation of the watermark inserted into the second transport stream by the media device based on the timed text track;

determine whether the textual representation of the watermark is (1) media identifying metadata and (2) formatted using an ID3 format; and

in response to the determination that the textual representation of the watermark is (1) the media identifying metadata and (2) formatted using the ID3 format, forwarding, from the media monitor, the textual representation of the watermark to a central facility of an audience measurement entity.

2. The method as described in claim 1, further including associating the watermark with the media at the central facility.

3. The method as described in claim 2, further including transmitting audience identifying information to the central facility.

4. The method as described in claim 3, further including associating the audience identifying information with the media.

5. The method as described in claim 4, further including generating a media exposure report based on the audience identifying information and the media.

6. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the textual representation of the watermark is included in a closed captioning portion of the second transport stream.

7. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the streaming format is a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Live Streaming (HLS) protocol.

17. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the audience measurement entity is not involved with delivery of the first transport stream to the media device.

8. A system to measure exposure to streaming media, the system comprising:

a central facility of an audience measurement entity; and

a media monitor to intercept second media intermediate a media device and a display, the media monitor to couple the media device to the display, the second media including a textual representation of a watermark obtained by the media device from a timed text track associated with but separate from first media received by the media device, the textual representation of the watermark inserted into the second transport stream by the media device based on the timed text track, the media monitor to access the textual representation of the watermark in a closed captioning portion of the second media, the media monitor to transmit the watermark to the central facility in response to determining the textual representation is (1) media identifying metadata and (2) formatted using an ID3 format.

9. The system as described in claim 8, wherein the media monitor is to collect audience identifying information associated with the display and transmit the audience identifying information to the central facility.

10. The system as described in claim 8, wherein the central facility is to generate a media exposure report based on the audience identifying information and the watermark.

18. The system as described in claim 8, wherein the audience measurement entity is not involved with delivery of the first media to the media device.

11. A tangible machine-readable storage medium comprising machine-readable instructions which, when executed, cause a processor of a media monitor to at least:

intercept a second transport stream including media output from a media device, the intercepting performed intermediate the media device and a display device, the media monitor coupling the media device and the display, the second transport stream including a textual representation of a watermark obtained by the media device from a timed text track associated with but separate from a first transport stream received by the media device;

access the textual representation of the watermark from the intercepted second transport stream, the textual representation of the watermark inserted into the second transport stream by the media device based on the timed text track;

determine whether the textual representation of the watermark is (1) media identifying metadata and (2) formatted using the ID3 format; and

in response to determining that the textual representation of the watermark is (1) the media identifying metadata and (2) formatted using the ID3 format, forward the textual representation of the watermark to a central facility of an audience measurement entity.

12. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the processor to transmit audience identifying information to the central facility.

13. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the processor to associate the audience identifying information with the media.

14. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the central facility is to generate a media exposure report based on the audience identifying information and the media.

15. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the textual representation of the watermark is included in a closed captioning portion of the second transport stream.

16. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the streaming format is a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Live Streaming (HLS) protocol.

19. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the audience measurement entity is not involved with delivery of the first transport stream to the media device.