Apparatus and method for media on demand commentaries

• US 9,584,864 B2
• Filed: 03/03/2015
• Issued: 02/28/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Roberts, Linda, Chang, E-Lee, Sung, Ja-Young, Schultz, Natasha Barrett, King, Robert
• Primary Examiner(s): Bruckart, Benjamin R
• Assistant Examiner(s): Thomas, Jason
• Application Number:
  US14/636,877
• Publication Number:
  US 20150181297A1
• Time in Patent Office: 728 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/33 Arrangements for monitoring the users' behaviour or opinions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/104 Grouping of entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• 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 21/2353 specifically adapted to content descriptors, e.g. coding, compressing or processing of metadata
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2668 Creating a channel for a dedicated end-user group, e.g. insertion of targeted commercials based on end-user profiles information retrieval from the Internet by querying with filtering and personalisation G06F16/9535; arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast H04H20/10; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; adaptation of message content in packet-switching networks H04L51/063
• 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 21/44008 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 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4756 for rating content, e.g. scoring a recommended movie
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4882 for displaying messages, e.g. warnings, reminders arrangements for providing short real-time information to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1895
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8133 specifically related to the content, e.g. biography of the actors in a movie, detailed information about an article seen in a video program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a system having a controller to present an overlay to be combined with media content during presentation at each of a plurality of computing devices to illustrate a collection of user-generated comments temporally associated with portions of the media content, wherein the portions of the media content comprise portions of a media on demand presentation in an interactive television network, collect the user-generated comments from the plurality of computing devices, identify target portions of the media content that each satisfy a threshold number of comments and non-target portions of the media content that do not satisfy the threshold number of comments, generate comment groups of the user-generated comments, and provide the comment groups to the plurality of computing devices for presentation in the overlay.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

providing, by a processing system including a processor, an overlay to be combined with media content during presentation at each of a plurality of computing devices to illustrate a collection of user-generated comments temporally associated with portions of the media content, wherein the portions of the media content comprise portions of a media on demand presentation in an interactive television network;

collecting, by the processing system, the user-generated comments from the plurality of computing devices;

identifying, by the processing system, target portions of the media content that each satisfy a threshold number of comments and non-target portions of the media content that do not satisfy the threshold number of comments, wherein the target portions are associated with corresponding target comments of the user-generated comments, and wherein the non-target portions are associated with non-target corresponding comments of the user-generated comments;

generating, by the processing system, comment groups of the user-generated comments, wherein the user-generated comments of the comment groups are associated with a group of users selected by a common geographic area, a common subject interest or a combination thereof;

providing, by the processing system, the comment groups to the plurality of computing devices for presentation in the overlay; and

generating, by the processing system, a video on demand catalog that includes the target portions of the media content and the corresponding target comments without including the non-target portions of the media content and the non-target corresponding comments.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the video on demand catalog includes comments generated by sources associated with the media content.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the sources include a director of the media content, an actor of the media content or, a combination thereof.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the comments generated by the sources include supporting staff comments which are temporally associated with portions of the media content.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating, by the system, a video on demand trailer that includes the target portions of the media content without the corresponding comments of the user-generated comments.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the overlay comprises a time line with annotations corresponding to the user-generated comments.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing, by the system, graphical indicators that distinguish between commentaries of users, directors, actors and supporting staff.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

categorizing a source of the user-generated comments; and

providing a graphical indicator for a category that represents the source.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating, by the system, a video on demand catalog that includes the target portions of the media content.

10. A system, comprising:

a processing system including a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, comprising;

providing an overlay to be combined with media content during presentation of the media content at each of a plurality of computing devices to receive a collection of user-generated comments temporally associated with portions of the media content;

collecting the user-generated comments from the plurality of computing devices;

identifying target portions of the media content based on a number of comments corresponding to each of the target portions that satisfies a comment frequency threshold;

generating, by the processing system, comment groups of the user-generated comments, wherein the user-generated comments of the comment groups are associated with a group of users selected based on a group of user profiles; and

generating a video on demand catalog that includes the target portions of the media content and corresponding comments of the user-generated comments without including other portions of the media content that do not satisfy the comment frequency threshold.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise:

accessing the group of user profiles corresponding to a group of computing devices;

identifying a common interest based on an analysis of the group of user profiles; and

selecting the plurality of computing devices from among the group of computing devices based on the common interest.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein operations further comprise:

categorizing a source of the user-generated comments; and

providing a graphical indicator for a category that represents the source.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the video on demand catalog includes comments generated by sources associated with the media content.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise generating a video on demand trailer that includes the target portions of the media content without the corresponding comments of the user-generated comments.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein operations further comprise appending the comment groups to a video of demand catalog related to the media content for additional users that match the group of users.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise providing the user-generated comments to the plurality of computing devices through the overlay.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:

providing an overlay to be combined with media content during presentation at each of a plurality of computing devices to provide a collection of user-generated comments temporally associated with portions of the media content;

collecting the user-generated comments from the plurality of computing devices through the overlay;

identifying target portions of the media content based on a number of comments corresponding to each of the target portions that satisfies a comment number threshold;

generating comment groups of the user-generated comments, wherein the user-generated comments of the comment groups are associated with a group of users selected based on an identification of a common interest; and

generating a video on demand catalog that includes the target portions of the media content and corresponding comments of the user-generated comments without including other portions of the media content that do not satisfy the comment number threshold.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein operations further comprise appending the comment groups to the video on demand catalog related to the media content for additional users that match the group of users to be provided on the overlay.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the identification of the common interest is based on an analysis of a group of user profiles, and wherein the plurality of computing devices operate over an interactive television network.