Apparatus and method for transmitting media content

• US 9,661,391 B2
• Filed: 07/27/2016
• Issued: 05/23/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2009
• 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): SCHNURR, JOHN R
• Application Number:
  US15/221,173
• Publication Number:
  US 20160337703A1
• Time in Patent Office: 300 Days
• 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 21/2353 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 21/4788 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 21/64322 IP
• 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 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8547 involving timestamps for synchronizing content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/173 with two-way working, e.g. subscriber sending a programme selection signal

Abstract

A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may perform operations including, for example, receiving a plurality of user-generated comments associated with media content where the plurality of user-generated comments are temporally associated with a portion of the media content during a presentation of the media content at a group of communication devices, and identifying from the plurality of user-generated comments a cluster of comments associated with a segment of the media content based on a frequency of the user-generated comments. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a processing system including a processor, a plurality of requests to generate a respective plurality of user-generated comments associated with media content during presentations of the media content by a group of communication devices,

generating, by the processing system, a plurality of time stamps based on a time at which each of the plurality of requests are received;

associating, by the processing system, the plurality of user-generated comments to the media content based on the plurality of time stamps;

identifying, by the processing system, from the plurality of user-generated comments, a cluster of comments associated with a segment of the media content based on a frequency of the plurality of user-generated comments;

filtering, by the processing system, the cluster of comments based on subject matter to generate a filtered cluster of comments;

identifying, by the processing system, a sample segment according to a range of the segment of the media content that is to be transmitted to a recipient device; and

transmitting, by the processing system, the filtered cluster of comments and the sample segment to the recipient device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the range of the segment is a portion of the segment starting at a time period before a first comment and after a second comment.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the filtering of the cluster of comments further comprises replacing a portion of the cluster of comments with substitute content.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the sample segment includes the filtered cluster of comments.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting a client program to the group of communication devices operating in an interactive television network, wherein the client program presents an overlay that is superimposed onto the media content, and

wherein annotations are presented along a time line in the overlay.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein each of the annotations is representative of a corresponding one of the plurality of user-generated comments based on a corresponding one of the plurality of time stamps.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the media content includes audio content and video content, and

wherein the sample segment includes a portion of the segment selected from a time before a first comment and a time after a second comment.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the presentations of the media content is performed at different times for different groups of the communication devices.

9. An apparatus, 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;

receiving a plurality of requests to generate a plurality of user-generated comments associated with media content during presentations of the media content by a group of communication devices;

generating a plurality of time stamps that correspond to a time at which the plurality of requests are received;

associating the plurality of user-generated comments to the media content based on the time stamps;

identifying, from the plurality of user-generated comments, a cluster of comments associated with a segment of the media content based on a frequency of the plurality of user-generated comments;

receiving, from user input, a range of interest in the segment;

identifying a sample segment according to the range of the segment of the media content that is to be transmitted to a recipient device; and

transmitting the sample segment to the recipient device.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the range of the segment includes a portion of the segment starting at a time period before a first comment and after a second comment.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise filtering the cluster of comments based on subject matter to generate a filtered cluster of comments.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise transmitting a client program to the group of communication devices operating in an interactive television network, wherein the client program presents an overlay that is superimposed onto the media content,

wherein annotations are presented along a time line in the overlay, and

wherein each of the annotations is representative of a corresponding one of the plurality of user-generated comments based on a corresponding one of the plurality of time stamps.

13. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the presentations of the media content is performed at different times for different groups of the communication devices.

14. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the media content comprises audio content and video content, and

wherein the sample segment includes a portion of the segment selected from a time before a first comment and a time after a second comment.

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

receiving a plurality of requests to generate a corresponding plurality of user-generated comments associated with media content during presentations of the media content by a group of communication devices;

generating a plurality of time stamps corresponding to a time at which each of the plurality of requests are received;

associating the plurality of user-generated comments to the media content based on the time stamps;

identifying, from the plurality of user-generated comments, a cluster of comments associated with a segment of the media content based on a frequency of the plurality of user-generated comments;

filtering the cluster of comments based on a filtering parameter to generate a filtered cluster of comments;

selecting a sample segment according to a range of the segment; and

transmitting the filtered cluster of comments and the sample segment to a recipient device.

16. The non-transitory, machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the range of the segment includes a portion of the segment starting at a time period before a first comment and after a second comment.

17. The non-transitory, machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the filtering the cluster of comments based on a filtering parameter comprises filtering based on subject matter.

18. The non-transitory, machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the filtering of the cluster of comments further comprises replacing a portion of the cluster of comments with substitute content.

19. The non-transitory, machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise transmitting a client program to the group of communication devices operating in an interactive television network,

wherein the client program presents an overlay that is superimposed onto the media content,

wherein annotations are presented along a time line in the overlay, and

wherein each of the annotations is representative of a corresponding one of the plurality of user-generated comments based on a corresponding one of the plurality of time stamps.

20. The non-transitory, machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the presentations of the media content is performed at different times for different groups of the communication devices.