Scheme for determining the locations and timing of advertisements and other insertions in media

• US 9,497,491 B2
• Filed: 10/07/2014
• Issued: 11/15/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/22/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment America LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Zalewski, Gary M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Mehrmanesh, Amir
• Application Number:
  US14/508,723
• Publication Number:
  US 20150025949A1
• Time in Patent Office: 770 Days
• Field of Search: 725 32- 36, 725135-136, 348/578, 348586-588
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/168 Feature extraction; Face representation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23418 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics television picture signal circuitry for scene change detection H04N5/147; filtering for image enhancement G06T5/00; methods or arrangements for recognising scenes G06V20/00; arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23424 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement
• 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 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8583 by creating hot-spots
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8586 by using a URL processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94; information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; URL in broadcast information H04H20/93; Web-based protocols H04L67/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/147 Scene change detection

Abstract

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium stores one or more computer programs adapted to cause a processor based system to execute steps that include analyzing an image, identifying one or more faces in the image using a face recognition technique, designating at least one of the identified faces collectively as a first area of interest, and determining whether an insertion area exists in the image where additional content can be inserted without obstructing the first area of interest. Another computer program is adapted to cause a processor based system to execute steps that include determining whether the insertion area can be divided into two or more regions based on color. Methods and processor based apparatuses that perform one or more of these steps are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more computer programs adapted to cause a processor based system to execute steps comprising:

analyzing a sequence of frames of content;

identifying a first area of interest in a scene depicted by the sequence of frames that should not be obstructed from being viewed;

determining whether an insertion area exists in the scene where additional content can be inserted without obstructing the first area of interest;

determining whether the insertion area includes two or more regions within the insertion area that each have a different color;

dividing the insertion area into the two or more regions that each have a different color; and

inserting the additional content into one of the two or more regions such that the additional content is completely contained within the one of the two or more regions.

2. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the one or more computer programs are further adapted to cause the processor based system to execute steps comprising:

selecting the additional content at least partly based on a color of the one of the two or more regions.

3. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the inserting the additional content into one of the two or more regions such that the additional content is completely contained within the one of the two or more regions comprises:

maintaining a buffer area between the additional content and an edge of the one of the two or more regions.

4. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the inserting the additional content into one of the two or more regions such that the additional content is completely contained within the one of the two or more regions comprises:

placing the additional content so that it is fixed in the one of the two or more regions in the scene and is not allowed to move in the scene.

5. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the inserting the additional content into one of the two or more regions such that the additional content is completely contained within the one of the two or more regions comprises:

placing the additional content so that it is allowed to move within the one of the two or more regions in the scene.

6. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the identifying a first area of interest in a scene depicted by the sequence of frames that should not be obstructed from being viewed comprises:

identifying one or more faces in the scene using a face recognition technique.

7. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the identifying a first area of interest in a scene depicted by the sequence of frames that should not be obstructed from being viewed comprises:

identifying areas in the scene having activity.

8. A method, comprising:

analyzing a sequence of frames of content;

identifying a first area of interest in a scene depicted by the sequence of frames that should not be obstructed from being viewed;

determining whether an insertion area exists in the scene where additional content can be inserted without obstructing the first area of interest;

determining whether the insertion area includes two or more regions within the insertion area that each have a different color;

dividing the insertion area into the two or more regions that each have a different color; and

inserting the additional content into one of the two or more regions such that the additional content is completely contained within the one of the two or more regions.

9. A processor based apparatus receiving and playing the content processed by the method of claim 8.

10. The processor based apparatus of claim 9, wherein the processor based apparatus comprises any one or more of a set-top box, cable box, entertainment system, game console, computer, and television.