ADVERTISING INSERTION FOR PLAYBACK OF VIDEO STREAMS ON USER DEVICES

• US 20120167132A1
• Filed: 12/23/2010
• Published: 06/28/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Ruffini, Michael P., Saxena, Tushar, MATHEWS, Robin M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,264,750 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25808 Management of client data terminal profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/303
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25866 Management of end-user data customer care in data networks H04L41/5077
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26258 for generating a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlist, or scheduling item distribution according to such list retrieval of multimedia data based on playlists G06F16/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44016 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for substituting a video clip
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; 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 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

One or more servers in an IP network receive, from a user device, a selection of live streaming content and assemble an index file including links to chunks of the selected live streaming content and links to advertising files for insertion within the selected live streaming content. The one or more severs send, to the user device, a link to the index file associated with the selected live streaming content and receive, from the user device, a streaming request for the selected live streaming content. The one or more servers send, to the user device, the index file including the links to chunks of the selected live streaming content and the links to advertising files for insertion within the selected live streaming content. The user device may use the links to combine the chunks of the selected live streaming content and the advertising files into a single linear presentation. A standards-based client for the user device is used with the server side implementation. Multiple groupings of index files, based on various location and business criteria, allow for reduction in media stream creation, and granularity of addressing each subscriber.

Claims

1. A method performed by one or more servers, comprising:

dividing, by one of the servers, live video content into chunks of live streaming content, where the end of one or more of the chunks corresponds to a beginning of an advertising break in the live video content;

receiving, by one of the servers and from a user device, a selection of the live streaming content;

assembling, by one of the servers, an index file including links to the chunks of the selected live streaming content and links to advertising for insertion within the selected live streaming content;

sending, by one of the servers and to the user device, a link to the index file associated with the selected live streaming content;

receiving, by one of the servers associated with the link to the index file and from the user device, a streaming request for the selected live streaming content; and

sending, by one of the servers associated with the link to the index file, the index file.

2. The method of claim 1, where the links to the advertising include uniform resource locators (URLs) and parameters for advertisements targeted to a user of the user device.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining if location-based restrictions apply to the selected live streaming content;

identifying a location associated with the user device when location-based restrictions apply to the selected live streaming content; and

selecting the link to the index file based on the location of the user device.

4. The method of claim 3, where the link to the index file includes one or more of:

a link to a blackout notification for user devices within a particular geographic location;

Or a link to alternate content for the selected live streaming content.

5. The method of claim 4, where identifying a location associated with the user device comprises determining a location based on one or more of:

login of a user information,

a device identifier,

a stored user profile, or

a serving base station for a wireless user device.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from the user device, a request for a list of content available to a user of the user device; and

sending, to the user device, the list of available content, where the list includes one or more titles of live content available for streaming to the user device.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending, to the user device, a link to a business rules server;

receiving, from the user device, a request for an advertising profile;

sending, to the user device, an advertising profile identifier, where the advertising profile identifier maps the user device to an advertisement grouping.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

receiving, from the user device, a request for advertising associated with the advertising profile identifier; and

sending, to the user device, advertising files based on the advertising profile identifier.

12. The system of claim 1, where the links to advertising include uniform resource locators (URLs) and multiple parameters to define content of an advertising file.

9. A system, comprising:

a web server to;

receive, from a user device, a request for a list of content available to a user of the user device,

send, to the user device, the list of available content, where the list includes one or more titles of live content available for streaming to the user device,

receive, from the user device, a selection of live streaming content, from the list of available content, and

send, to the user device, a link to an index file associated with the selected live streaming content; and

an index server to;

assemble the index file, where the index file includes links to chunks of the selected live streaming content and links to advertising for insertion within the selected live streaming content,

receive, from the user device, a request for the index file, and

send, to the user device, the index file.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

an advertising server to;

receive, from the user device and based on the index file, a request for an advertising file targeted to a user of the user device, and

send, to the user device, the advertising file.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

a business rules server to;

receive, from the user device, a request for an advertising profile, and

send to the user device, an advertising profile identifier, where the advertising profile identifier maps the user device to an advertisement grouping,

where the user device receive a link to the business rules server from the web server.

13. A method, comprising:

sending, by a user device and to a web server, a request for live streaming content;

receiving, by the user device and based on the request, a link to a dynamic index file for the live streaming content;

sending, by the user device and based on the link to the dynamic index file, a request for the dynamic index file;

receiving, by the user device, the dynamic index file, where the dynamic index file includes links to chunks of the selected live streaming content and links to advertising files to be inserted within the selected live streaming content;

retrieving, by the user device and based on the dynamic index file, the chunks of the selected live streaming content; and

retrieving, by the user device and based on the dynamic index file, the advertising files to be inserted within the selected live streaming content.

14. The method of claim 13, where retrieving the advertising files to be inserted within the selected live streaming content further comprises:

sending, based on one of the links to the advertising files, a request for the advertising files;

storing the advertising files in a local memory; and

retrieving, from the local memory, the advertising files when the advertising files are to be inserted within the selected live streaming content.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving, from the web server, a link to a business rules server;

sending, to the business rules server and based on the link, a request for an advertising profile identifier;

receiving, from the business rules server, the advertising profile identifier; and

downloading, from an advertising server, the advertising files to be inserted within the selected live streaming content based on the advertising profile identifier.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

providing, to a user of the user device, a linear presentation of the chunks of the selected live streaming content with the advertising files inserted within the selected live streaming content.

17. A device, comprising:

a memory to store a plurality of instructions; and

a processor to execute instructions in the memory to;

send, to a web server, a request for live streaming content,

receive, based on the request for live streaming content, a link to a dynamic index file for the live streaming content,

send, based on the link to the dynamic index file, a request for the dynamic index file,

receive the dynamic index file, where the dynamic index file includes links to chunks of the selected live streaming content and links to advertising files to be inserted within the selected live streaming content,

retrieve, based on the dynamic index file, the chunks of the selected live streaming content,

retrieve, based on the dynamic index file, the advertising files to be inserted within the selected live streaming content, and

present, to a user, a linear presentation of the chunks of the selected live streaming content with the advertising files inserted within the selected live streaming content.

18. The device of claim 17, where the user device comprises one of:

a personal communications system (PCS) terminal,

a personal digital assistant (PDA),

a laptop computer,

a tablet computer,

a personal computer, or

a smartphone.

19. The device of claim 17, where, when retrieving the advertising files to be inserted within the selected live streaming content, the processor is further to execute instructions in the memory to:

send, based on one of the links to the advertising files, a request for the advertising files;

store the advertising files in the memory; and

retrieve, from the memory, the advertising files when the advertising files are to be inserted within the selected live streaming content.

20. The device of claim 17, where the instructions in the memory include a commercial-off-the-shelf media player.

21. A method performed by one or more servers, comprising:

dividing, by one of the servers, live video content into chunks of live streaming content, where the end of one or more of the chunks corresponds to a beginning of an advertising break in the live video content;

assembling, by one of the servers, an index file including links to the chunks of the selected live streaming content and links to advertising for insertion within the selected live streaming content, where the links to the advertising replace links to the chunks of the selected live streaming content that are reserved for advertising;

receiving, by one of the servers and from a user device, a selection of the live streaming content;

sending, by one of the servers and to the user device, a link to the index file associated with the selected live streaming content;

receiving, by one of the servers associated with the link to the index file and from the user device, a streaming request for the selected live streaming content;

sending, by one of the servers associated with the link to the index file, the index file, and;

receiving, by one of the servers, a request for the chunks of the selected live streaming content based on the links to the chunks of the selected live streaming content in the index file; and

receiving, by a different one of the servers, a request for the advertising based on the advertising links in the index file.

22. The method of claim 21, where dividing the live video content into chunks of live streaming content comprises:

identifying a cue tone for an advertising break in the live video content,

defining an end to a particular chunk based on the identified cue tone, and

indicating that a next chunk, after the particular chuck, begins the advertising break.

23. The method of claim 21, where assembling the index file comprises:

receiving an indication that a chunk in the live streaming content starts the advertising break,

selecting advertising parameters for an advertisement, and

inserting, into the index file and in place of the chunk that starts the advertising break, the advertising parameters.

24. The method of claim 23, where selecting the advertising parameters includes:

selecting a particular advertisement based on instructions from a business rules server, or

selecting criteria for a user device to use to obtain an advertisement from a group of advertisements.