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Bandwidth management and advertisement insertion in media content delivery systems and methods

  • US 9,774,923 B2
  • Filed: 05/28/2010
  • Issued: 09/26/2017
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2010
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method comprising:

  • transmitting, by a service provider subsystem, a transport stream containing an advertisement channel and a program channel, the program channel carrying a media program stream at a first bit rate;

    detecting, by the service provider subsystem, an upcoming advertisement break within the media program stream;

    dynamically adjusting, by the service provider subsystem at a start of the advertisement break, an allocation of bandwidth between the program channel and the advertisement channel by decreasing bandwidth used by the program channel and increasing bandwidth used by the advertisement channel to accommodate inserting multiple advertisement content streams in the transport stream during the advertisement break;

    inserting, by the service provider subsystem, an advertisement content stream having a second bit rate that is lower than the first bit rate into the program channel to temporally coincide with the advertisement break; and

    inserting, by the service provider subsystem, an additional advertisement content stream in the advertisement channel, the additional advertisement content stream temporally coinciding with the advertisement break and utilizing at least a portion of the increased bandwidth, used by the advertisement channel, that results from the dynamically adjusting of the allocation of bandwidth;

    whereinthe advertisement content stream is inserted in the program channel and the additional advertisement content stream is inserted in the advertisement channel such that either the advertisement content stream or the additional advertisement content stream is selectable by a media content access subsystem for presentation to a user during the advertisement break, andthe advertisement channelcarries a blank stream that uses less than a predetermined amount of bandwidth of the transport stream outside of the advertisement break and that does not include advertisement content outside of the advertisement break and any other advertisement break included in the media program stream, andcarries the additional advertisement content stream during the advertisement break, the additional advertisement content stream using more than the predetermined amount of bandwidth during the advertisement break by utilizing the at least the portion of the increased bandwidth, used by the advertisement channel, that results from the dynamically adjusting of the allocation of bandwidth.

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