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

• US 9,872,048 B2
• Filed: 01/13/2015
• Issued: 01/16/2018
• 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:
  US14/596,057
• Publication Number:
  US 20150128171A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,099 Days
• 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 an image;

identifying one or more faces in the image using a face recognition technique;

determining a size of each of the identified faces;

designating at least one of the identified faces collectively as a first area of interest based on the determined sizes of the identified faces and whether a face is a certain proportion to another face, wherein the certain proportion is defined by a threshold setting that is used to select faces for inclusion in the first area of interest;

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

wherein the one or more computer programs are further adapted to cause the processor based system to execute steps comprising;

determining whether the insertion area can be divided into two or more regions based on color;

dividing the insertion area into two or more regions based on 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 image comprises one frame in a sequence of frames of content.

3. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 2, wherein:

the identifying one or more faces in the image comprises identifying one or more faces in a scene depicted by the sequence of frames; and

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

4. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 3, wherein the one or more computer programs are further adapted to cause the processor based system to execute steps comprising:

determining an amount of time that the insertion area is available when the sequence of frames is being played.

5. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 3, wherein the one or more computer programs are further adapted to cause the processor based system to execute steps comprising:

determining a size of the insertion area.

6. 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 an image;

identifying one or more faces in the image using a face recognition technique;

determining a size of each of the identified faces;

designating at least one of the identified faces collectively as a first area of interest based on the determined sizes of the identified faces and whether a face is a certain proportion to another face; and

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

wherein the step of designating at least one of the identified faces collectively as a first area of interest based on the determined sizes of the identified faces and whether a face is a certain proportion to another face comprises;

selecting a largest one of the identified faces and only ones of the identified faces that are not smaller than a certain percentage of the largest one of the identified faces.

7. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 6, wherein the certain percentage is designated by a user.

8. A method, comprising:

analyzing a first sequence of frames of content;

identifying one or more faces in a scene depicted by the first sequence of frames using a face recognition technique;

determining a size of each of the identified faces;

designating at least one of the identified faces collectively as a first area of interest based on the determined sizes of the identified faces and whether a face is a certain proportion to another face, wherein the certain proportion is defined by a threshold setting that is used to select faces for inclusion in the first area of interest;

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 can be divided into two or more regions based on color;

dividing the insertion area into two or more regions based on 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. The method of claim 8, wherein the content further comprises a second sequence of frames following the first sequence of frames.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

playing the content so that the first sequence of frames plays and displays the inserted additional content and then the second sequence of frames plays.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the playing the content further comprises:

providing an option to a user during the first sequence of frames to skip the inserted additional content.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the option to skip the inserted additional content is provided to the user after an elapsed amount of time.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the option to skip the inserted additional content is provided to the user in response to the user clicking on something on the user'"'"'s screen.

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

playing a first sequence of frames, wherein the first sequence of frames includes an advertisement inserted into a scene depicted by at least some of the frames in the first sequence of frames; and

playing a second sequence of frames after the first sequence of frames;

wherein the advertisement was inserted into the scene in the first sequence of frames by a process that includes,

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

determining a size of each of the identified faces;

designating at least one of the identified faces collectively as a first area of interest based on the determined sizes of the identified faces and whether a face is a certain proportion to another face, wherein the certain proportion is defined by a threshold setting that is used to select faces for inclusion in the first area of interest;

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

determining whether the insertion area can be divided into two or more regions based on color;

dividing the insertion area into two or more regions based on color; and

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

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the one or more computer programs are further adapted to cause the processor based system to execute steps comprising:

providing an option to a user during the playing of the first sequence of frames to skip the advertisement.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the option to skip the advertisement is provided to the user after an elapsed amount of time.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the option to skip the advertisement is provided to the user in response to the user clicking on something on the user'"'"'s screen.