Methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture to provide secondary content in association with primary broadcast media content

• US 10,003,846 B2
• Filed: 03/03/2014
• Issued: 06/19/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/01/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Original Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Inventors: Harkness, David Henry, Ramaswamy, Arun, Samson, Jerome, Besehanic, Jan, Srinivasan, Venugopal, Topchy, Alexander Pavlovich
• Primary Examiner(s): Elbin, Jesse A
• Application Number:
  US14/195,547
• Publication Number:
  US 20140189724A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,569 Days
• Field of Search: 700 94, 704E19009, 725 14, 725 18, 725 19
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/018 Audio watermarking, i.e. embedding inaudible data in the audio signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/31 using in-band signals, e.g. subsonic or cue signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/86 Arrangements characterised by the broadcast information itself
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 2201/40 characterised in that additional data relating to the broadcast data are available via a different channel than the broadcast channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/14 Arrangements for conditional access to broadcast information or to broadcast-related services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/68 Systems specially adapted for using specific information, e.g. geographical or meteorological information
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25891 being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4126 The peripheral being portable, e.g. PDAs or mobile phones
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4394 involving operations for analysing the audio stream, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in audio streams arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4398 involving reformatting operations of audio signals details of audio signal transcoding G10L19/173
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/442 Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. detecting the failure of a recording device, monitoring the downstream bandwidth, the number of times a movie has been viewed, the storage space available from the internal hard disk arrangements for monitoring broadcast services or broadcast-related services H04H60/29; arrangements for identifying or recognising characteristics with a direct linkage to broadcast information H04H60/35; monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; monitoring in wireless networks H04W24/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44222 Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17327 with deferred transmission or handling of upstream communications

Abstract

Example methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture to provide media content are disclosed. A disclosed example method includes receiving an audio signal output by a first media presentation device, the audio signal being associated with first media content, decoding the audio signal to extract a code from the audio signal, the code identifying at least one of the first media content or a broadcaster of the first media content, setting a clock using a timestamp associated with the code, obtaining second media content based on the code and the timestamp, the second media content comprising a plurality of pieces of secondary content for respective ones of a plurality of timestamps, and presenting, at a second media presentation device, a first of the plurality of pieces of secondary media when its respective timestamp substantially corresponds to a time value obtained from the clock.

Claims

1. A method of decoding a code from an audio signal associated with first media output by a first media presentation device, the method comprising:

sampling the audio signal to generate a sampled audio signal;

transforming the sampled audio signal into a frequency domain representation;

determining characteristics of frequencies in a plurality of code bands of the frequency domain representation that may contain the code, the code representative of at least one of the first media or a broadcaster of the first media, the code, if present, being encoded in the audio signal using a plurality of frequency components across the plurality of code bands;

normalizing the characteristics of the frequencies of respective ones of the code bands, the characteristic frequencies of a first one of the code bands being normalized against a threshold characteristic of a first frequency in the first one of the code bands;

comparing sums of the normalized characteristics for groups of frequencies across the plurality of code bands to identify a first group of frequencies with a largest sum; and

determining that the first group of frequencies is representative of the code to decode the code from the first group of frequencies; and

transmitting a wireless signal to a second media presentation device, the wireless signal including the decoded code, the wireless signal to trigger the second media presentation device to A) transmit the decoded code to a ratings server to cause the ratings server to

     1) obtain second media based on the decoded code and

     2) determine audience rating information corresponding to presentation of the first media on the first media presentation device and presentation of the second media on the second media presentation device based on the decoded code, and B) present the second media at the second media presentation device.

2. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein the first media presentation device and the second media presentation device are at a same monitoring site.

3. The method as defined in claim 2, further including detecting presentation of the first media by the first media presentation device.

4. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein the decoded code is associated with at least one of a program identifier, a station identifier, or a timestamp.

5. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein the wireless signal includes at least one of a Bluetooth signal, a wireless local area network signal, or a cellular signal.

6. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein the audio signal includes embedded frequency components representing the decoded code, different sets of the frequency components representing respectively different information, one frequency component from each of the sets of frequency components being located in a code band, the code band being one of a plurality of code bands and spacing between adjacent code bands being equal to or less than the spacing between adjacent frequency components of each of the code bands, amplitudes of the frequency components representing the information and being selected based on a masking ability of the audio.

7. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein the audience rating information includes a first reach and a second reach, the first reach corresponding to presentation of the first media on the first media presentation device based on the decoded code, and the second reach corresponding to presentation of the second media on the second media presentation device based on the decoded code.

8. A tangible computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause a machine to at least:

sample an audio signal associated with first media output by a first media presentation device to generate a sampled audio signal;

transform the sampled audio signal into a frequency domain representation;

determine characteristics of frequencies in a plurality of code bands of the frequency domain representation that may contain a code, the code representative of at least one of the first media or a broadcaster of the first media, the code, if present, being encoded in the audio signal using a plurality of frequency components across the plurality of code bands;

normalize the characteristics of the frequencies of respective ones of the code bands, the characteristic frequencies of a first one of the code bands being normalized against a threshold characteristic of a first frequency in the first one of the code bands;

compare sums of the normalized characteristics for groups of frequencies across the plurality of code bands to identify a first group of frequencies with a largest sum; and

determine that the first group of frequencies is representative of the code to decode the code from the first group of frequencies; and

transmit a wireless signal to a second media presentation device, the wireless signal including the decoded code, the wireless signal to trigger the second media presentation device to A) transmit the decoded code to a ratings server to cause the ratings server to

     1) obtain second media based on the decoded code and

     2) determine audience rating information corresponding to presentation of the first media on the first media presentation device and presentation of the second media on the second media presentation device based on the decoded code, and B) present the second media at the second media presentation device.

9. The tangible computer readable storage medium as defined of claim 8, wherein the first media presentation device and the second media presentation device are at a same monitoring site.

10. The tangible computer readable storage medium as defined of claim 9, further including detecting presentation of the first media by the first media presentation device.

11. The tangible computer readable storage medium as defined of claim 8, wherein the wireless signal includes at least one of a Bluetooth signal, a wireless local area network signal, or a cellular signal.

12. The tangible computer readable storage medium as defined of claim 8, wherein the decoded code is associated with at least one of a program identifier, a station identifier, or a timestamp.

13. The storage medium as defined in claim 8, wherein the audience rating information includes a first reach and a second reach, the first reach corresponding to presentation of the first media on the first media presentation device based on the decoded code, and the second reach corresponding to presentation of the second media on the second media presentation device based on the decoded code.

14. An apparatus comprising:

a decoder including;

a sampler to sample an audio signal associated with first media output by a first media presentation device to generate a sampled audio signal;

a time-to-frequency domain converter to transform the sampled audio signal into a frequency domain representation;

a code frequency monitor to;

determine characteristics of frequencies in a plurality of code bands of the frequency domain representation that may contain the code, the code representative of at least one of the first media or a broadcaster of the first media, the code, if present, being encoded in the audio signal using a plurality of frequency components across the plurality of code bands;

normalize the characteristics of the frequencies of respective ones of the code bands, the characteristic frequencies of a first one of the code bands being normalized against a threshold characteristic of a first frequency in the first one of the code bands;

compare sums of the normalized characteristics for groups of frequencies across the plurality of code bands to identify a first group of frequencies with a largest sum; and

determine that the first group of frequencies is representative of the code and decode the code from the first group of frequencies; and

a wireless interface to transmit a wireless signal to a second media presentation device, the wireless signal including the decoded code, the wireless signal to trigger the second media presentation device to A) transmit the decoded code to a ratings server to cause the ratings server to

     1) obtain second media based on the decoded code and

     2) determine audience rating information corresponding to presentation of the first media on the first media presentation device and presentation of the second media on the second media presentation device based on the decoded code, and B) present the second media at the second media presentation device.

15. The apparatus as defined in claim 14, wherein the first media presentation device and the second media presentation device are at a same monitoring site.

16. The apparatus as defined in claim 15, further including transmitting the first media to the first media presentation device.

17. The apparatus as defined in claim 14, wherein the wireless signal includes at least one of a Bluetooth signal, a wireless local area network signal, or a cellular signal.

18. The apparatus as defined in claim 14, wherein the audio signal includes embedded frequency components representing the decoded code, different sets of the frequency components representing respectively different information, one frequency component from each of the sets of frequency components being located in a code band, the code band being one of a plurality of code bands and spacing between adjacent code bands being equal to or less than the spacing between adjacent frequency components of each of the code bands, amplitudes of the frequency components representing the information and being selected based on a masking ability of the audio.

19. The apparatus as defined in claim 14, wherein the apparatus includes a customer-premises media server.

20. The apparatus as defined in claim 14, wherein the media presentation device includes at least one of a handheld computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a cellular telephone, a smartphone, a laptop computer, a netbook computer, a hand-held media presentation device, or a mobile media presentation device.

21. The apparatus as defined in claim 14, wherein the audience rating information includes a first reach and a second reach, the first reach corresponding to presentation of the first media on the first media presentation device based on the decoded code, and the second reach corresponding to presentation of the second media on the second media presentation device based on the decoded code.