Customizing DVR functionality

• US 9,094,718 B2
• Filed: 10/01/2013
• Issued: 07/28/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TiVo Solutions Inc. (Adeia Inc.)
• Original Assignee: TiVo Inc. (Adeia Inc.)
• Inventors: Barton, James M., Beach, Brian, Schmidt, Margret, Poniatowski, Robert F., Glennon, Shelly
• Primary Examiner(s): MENGESHA, MULUGETA A
• Application Number:
  US14/043,738
• Publication Number:
  US 20140033245A1
• Time in Patent Office: 665 Days
• Field of Search: 725/25, 725/2, 725/32, 725/348, 725/28, 725 34- 36
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/005 Reproducing at a different information rate from the information rate of recording for television signals H04N5/783
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4112 having fewer capabilities than the client, e.g. thin client having less processing power or no tuning capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4147 PVR [Personal Video Recorder] H04N5/76 takes precedence ; arrangements for broadcast with accumulation-type receivers H04H20/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42646 for reading from or writing on a non-volatile solid state storage medium, e.g. DVD, CD-ROM
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• 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 21/441 Acquiring end-user identification , e.g. using personal code sent by the remote control or by inserting a card
• 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 21/4542 Blocking scenes or portions of the received content, e.g. censoring scenes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/458 Scheduling content for creating a personalised stream, e.g. by combining a locally stored advertisement with an incoming stream; Updating operations, e.g. for OS modules ; time-related management operations arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast or during the distribution H04H20/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47214 for content reservation or setting reminders; for requesting event notification, e.g. of sport results or stock market stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; notification of incoming messages in packet switching networks H04L51/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4751 for defining user accounts, e.g. accounts for children
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4753 for user identification, e.g. by entering a PIN or password cryptographic authentication protocols H04L9/32; networks authentication protocols H04L63/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4755 for defining user preferences, e.g. favourite actors or genre retrieval personalisation and generation of user profiles for the retrieval of video data G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/488 Data services, e.g. news ticker systems specially adapted for using meteorological information in broadcast systems H04H60/71
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/76 Television signal recording
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/765 Interface circuits between an apparatus for recording and another apparatus
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/775 : between a recording apparatus and a television receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/781 : on disks or drums
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/85 : on discs or drums
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/163 : by receiver means only
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/7921 : for more than one processing mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8042 : involving data reduction

Abstract

Techniques described herein automatically identifies, in a multimedia content, an advertiser from which an advertisement in the multimedia content originates and/or a brand to which the advertisement pertains. The system determines whether the identified advertiser and/or identified brand is specified in a not to be displayed list and if so, performs at least one of: presents alternative content during the time interval that the advertisement occupies in the multimedia content or skips over the advertisement in the multimedia content.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

at a multimedia device, storing information that specifies one or more specified brands and/or one or more specified advertisers;

based on inspecting captioning data that accompanies multimedia content, locating within the captioning data one or more words known to occur in advertisements that are associated with at least one of the one or more specified brands and/or the one or more specified advertisers;

based at least partially on locating the one or more words in the captioning data, automatically identifying in the multimedia content, by the multimedia device, an advertisement that is associated with at least one of the one or more specified advertisers and/or at least one of the one or more specified brands;

in response to identifying the advertisement, while playing the multimedia content at the multimedia device, performing at least one of;

presenting alternative content during a time interval that the advertisement occupies in the multimedia content;

or

skipping over the advertisement in the multimedia content.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

selecting, at the multimedia device, the alternate content to display during the time interval based at least partially on priority data that specifies at least one of;

a frequency or a time of day that specific alternative content can be displayed;

presenting the alternative content during the time interval.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting the alternative content during the time interval that the advertisement occupies in the multimedia content

selecting, by the multimedia device, the alternative content to display from a pool of alternative advertisements.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining an operational mode, of a plurality of operational modes, in which the multimedia device is operating;

wherein presenting the alternate content or skipping the advertisement is responsive to determining that the multimedia device is operating in a first operational mode rather than a second operational mode.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a user identifier for a current user of the multimedia device;

wherein the multimedia device is configured to present alternative content for and/or skip different advertisements for different determined user identifiers.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting between presenting the alternative content or skipping over the advertisement based on data indicating whether a user of the multimedia device has paid a fee.

7. The method recited in claim 1, further comprising, in response to identifying the advertisement, skipping the advertisement.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing one or more sequences of instructions, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform steps that comprise:

at a multimedia device, storing information that specifies one or more specified brands and/or one or more specified advertisers;

based on inspecting captioning data that accompanies multimedia content, locating within the captioning data one or more words known to occur in advertisements that are associated with at least one of the one or more specified brands and/or the one or more specified advertisers;

based at least partially on locating the one or more words in the captioning data, automatically identifying in the multimedia content, by the multimedia device, an advertisement that is associated with at least one of the one or more specified advertisers and/or at least one of the one or more specified brands;

in response to identifying the advertisement, while playing the multimedia content at the multimedia device, performing at least one of;

presenting alternative content during a time interval that the advertisement occupies in the multimedia content;

or

skipping over the advertisement in the multimedia content.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as recited in claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform:

selecting, at the multimedia device, the alternate content to display during the time interval based at least partially on priority data that specifies at least one of;

a frequency or a time of day that specific alternative content can be displayed;

presenting the alternative content during the time interval.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as recited in claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to perform:

presenting the alternative content during the time interval that the advertisement occupies in the multimedia content

selecting, by the multimedia device, the alternative content to display from a pool of alternative advertisements.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as recited in claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to perform:

determining an operational mode, of a plurality of operational modes, in which the multimedia device is operating;

wherein presenting the alternate content or skipping the advertisement is responsive to determining that the multimedia device is operating in a first operational mode rather than a second operational mode.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as recited in claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to perform:

determining a user identifier for a current user of the multimedia device;

wherein the multimedia device is configured to present alternative content for and/or skip different advertisements for different determined user identifiers.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as recited in claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to perform selecting between presenting the alternative content or skipping over the advertisement based on data indicating whether a user of the multimedia device has paid a fee.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to perform, in response to identifying the advertisement, skipping the advertisement.

15. An apparatus comprising:

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, configured to store information that specifies one or more specified brands and/or one or more specified advertisers;

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, configured to, based on inspecting captioning data that accompanies multimedia content, locate within the captioning data one or more words known to occur in advertisements that are associated with at least one of the one or more specified brands and/or the one or more specified advertisers specified in the preference information;

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, configured to, based at least partially on locating the one or more words in the captioning data, automatically identify, in the multimedia content, an advertisement that is associated with at least one of the one or more specified advertisers and/or at least one of the one or more specified brands;

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, configured to, in response to identifying the advertisement, while playing the multimedia content, perform at least one of;

presents alternative content during a time interval that the advertisement occupies in the multimedia content;

or

skips over the advertisement in the multimedia content.

16. The apparatus as recited in claim 15, further comprising:

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, that is configured to select the alternate content to display during the time interval based at least partially on priority data that specifies at least one of;

a frequency or a time of day that specific alternative content can be displayed;

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, that is configured to present the alternative content during the time interval.

17. The apparatus as recited in claim 15, further comprising:

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, configured to present the alternative content during the time interval that the advertisement occupies in the multimedia content

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, configured to select the alternative content to display from a pool of alternative advertisements.

18. The apparatus as recited in claim 15, further comprising:

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, configured to determine an operational mode, of a plurality of operational modes, in which the apparatus is operating;

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, configured to present the alternate content or skip the advertisement only when the apparatus is operating in a first operational mode rather than a second operational mode.

19. The apparatus as recited in claim 15, further comprising:

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, configured to determine a user identifier for a current user of the apparatus;

a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, configured to present alternative content for and/or skip different advertisements for different determined user identifiers.

20. The apparatus as recited in claim 15, a subsystem, implemented at least partially in hardware, configured to select between presenting the alternative content or skipping over the advertisement based on data indicating whether a user of the multimedia device has paid a fee.

21. The apparatus as recited in claim 15, comprising a subsystem implemented at least partially in hardware and configured to, in response to identifying the advertisement, skip the advertisement.