Systems and Methods for Dynamic Conversion of Web Content to an Interactive Walled Garden Program

• US 20080141325A1
• Filed: 01/31/2008
• Published: 06/12/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Feinberg, Brian K., Ludvig, Edward A., Logue, Jay D., Sandke, Steven R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,225,367 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/116
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2355 involving reformatting operations of additional data, e.g. HTML pages optimising the visualization of content for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/9577; tracking of instant messages H04L51/234; media packet handling at the source H04L65/762
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4402 involving reformatting operations of video signals for household redistribution, storage or real-time display details of conversion of video standards at pixel level H04N7/01; video transcoding H04N19/40; adapting incoming signals to the display format of the display terminal G09G5/005; media handling at the source in data packet switching networks H04L65/764
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4725 using interactive regions of the image, e.g. hot spots details of information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8543 using a description language, e.g. Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group [MHEG], eXtensible Markup Language [XML] information retrieval of semistructured data, the underlying structure being taken into account, e.g. mark-up language structure data G06F16/80
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8545 for generating interactive applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/165 Centralised control of user terminal subsequent to an upstream request signal H04N7/17345; Registering at central by two-way working H04N7/17309
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

Systems and methods to dynamically convert Web content to an interactive program for display on resource constrained television clients are described. In particular, a head-end server in a digital television entertainment system downloads the Web content from an external data source. The head-end server dynamically transcodes the downloaded content into an interactive walled garden program (iWGP) that includes MPEG stills and metadata for delivery to a client in the television entertainment system.

Claims

1. In a television entertainment infrastructure, a head-end server comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled to the processor, the memory comprising computer-program instructions executable by the processor to performs operations comprising;

identifying an address corresponding to an external data source and source content, the source content being in an HTML data format;

downloading the source content from the external data source; and

automatically converting the source content into an iWGP, the iWGP including multiple MPEG stills and metadata for navigating the stills, the iWGP for broadcast delivery to a client in the television entertainment infrastructure.

2. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the source content exhibits transitive closure.

3. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the metadata includes a link to a different iWGP such that the client can be used to navigate from the iWGP to the different iWGP.

4. A head-end server as recited in claim 3, wherein the link indicates a digital service corresponding to the different iWGP and target metadata for the different iWGP.

5. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the client comprises a set-top box.

6. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the metadata describes structure and contents for an interaction model associated with the multiple MPEG stills.

7. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein downloading the source content further comprises communicating media service organization (MSO) and/or subscriber data to the external data source for use by the external data source to localize the source content.

8. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein automatically converting the source content further comprises generating a plurality of different stills over time from a single interface page of the source content, the interface page comprising attributes that change over time.

9. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein automatically converting the source content into broadcast ready data further comprises configuring the broadcast ready data to indicate a program name, an iWGP transport rate, a parental control rating, an identifier that maps a digital service to iWGP, an MPEG program number at which the iWGP is being broadcast, and/or a program broadcast frequency.

10. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein automatically converting the source content further comprises:

identifying a picture quality attribute; and

encoding a picture component from the source content into a still of the multiple MPEG stills such that the still is compressed according to the picture quality attribute.

11. A head-end server as recited in claim 1, wherein the computer-program instructions further comprise instructions for:

delivering video components of the iWGP to the client over an in-band communication channel; and

delivering metadata to the client over an in-band or out-of-band communication channel, the metadata corresponding to an interaction model for the video components.