Video preview generation

• US 9,715,901 B1
• Filed: 06/29/2015
• Issued: 07/25/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter, Inc.) (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter, Inc.) (X Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Regan, David, Wang, Yi, Vihinen, Noah, Woolway, Thomas Stephen, Singh, Baljeet, Folgner, Michael, Cunningham, Ryan
• Primary Examiner(s): Hunter, Mishawn
• Application Number:
  US14/754,558
• Time in Patent Office: 757 Days
• Field of Search: 386239, 386248, 386290
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/102 Programmed access in sequence to addressed parts of tracks of operating record carriers access by moving the head G11B3/08, G11B5/54, G11B7/085, G11B21/022; by moving the record carrier G11B15/005, G11B17/005, by driving of both record carrier and head G11B15/1816
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/28 by using information signals recorded by the same method as the main recording G11B27/22 takes precedence
• 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 21/2743 Video hosting of uploaded data from client
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4882 for displaying messages, e.g. warnings, reminders arrangements for providing short real-time information to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1895
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4884 for displaying subtitles
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8547 involving timestamps for synchronizing content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8549 Creating video summaries, e.g. movie trailer retrieval in video databases by using presentations in form of a video summary G06F16/739

Abstract

A system and method including: a source video for broadcast by a social media platform may be received; a set of video snippets may be extracted from the source video; a subset of the video snippets may be joined to form a preview video; a request for content for an account of the social media platform may be received from a client device; and the preview video may be provided to the client device for automatic playback by the client device in a playback area displayed inline with a message stream of the account.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a source video for broadcast by a social media platform;

extracting a set of video snippets from the source video, including identifying a set of transcoded video segments corresponding to the source video, selecting the set of video snippets from the source video based on the set of transcoded video segments, and modifying a length of at least one of the set of video snippets to correspond to a length of the set of transcoded video segments;

joining a subset of the video snippets to form a preview video;

receiving, from a client device, a request for content for an account of the social media platform; and

providing, to the client device, the preview video for automatic playback by the client device in a playback area displayed inline with a message stream of the account.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein extracting a set of video snippets from the source video comprises:

identifying closed captioning data associated with the source video;

identifying a set of events and a set of associated timestamps within the source video based on the closed captioning data;

ranking the set of events according to user interest ranking criteria; and

selecting the set of video snippets from the source video based on the ranking.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein extracting a set of video snippets from the source video comprises:

identifying metadata of the source video, wherein the metadata comprises event timestamps related to the content of the source video; and

selecting the set of video snippets from the source video based on the event timestamps.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein extracting a set of video snippets from the source video comprises:

detecting a set of visual elements within the video frames of the source video;

ranking the set of visual elements according to user interest ranking criteria; and

selecting the set of video snippets from the source video based on the ranking.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein extracting a set of video snippets from the source video comprises:

identifying a playback command during playback of the source video and an associated timestamp indicating when the playback command occurred during playback of the source video; and

selecting a video snippet beginning at a time referenced by the playback command and ending at the timestamp in the source video.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a set of user engagements during playback of the source video and a set of associated timestamps indicating when the set of user engagements occurred during playback of the source video, wherein the set of user engagements comprises social activity with respect to the source video;

calculating a weight of the user engagements per unit time period of the source video; and

selecting the set of video snippets from the source video based on the weight of the user engagements during each of the video snippets.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

joining a second subset of the video snippets to form a second preview video;

providing the preview video and the second preview video for automatic playback in playback areas displayed inline with a set of message streams for a set of context accounts;

comparing user engagement activity with the preview video, with user engagement activity with the second preview video; and

selecting the preview video with greater user engagement activity for subsequent inclusion in message streams for context accounts.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from the client device, a request for the source video for playback for the context account of the social media platform;

providing an advertisement to be displayed in the playback area before providing the source video; and

providing the source video for playback in the playback area after receiving a confirmation message confirming that the advertisement was displayed.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein before the modification the at least one of the set of video snippets does not align with one or more of the starting points, ending points, or duration of the transcoded video segments.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the modification comprises at least one of rounding down a starting time of at least one of the set of video snippets to align with a starting time of a transcoded video segment or rounding up an ending time of the at least one of the set of video snippets to align with an ending time of a transcoded video segment.

11. A system comprising:

a computer processor;

a memory having stored therein instructions executing on the computer processor and configured to cause the computer processor to;

receive a source video for broadcast by a social media platform;

extract a set of video snippets from the source video, including identifying a set of transcoded video segments corresponding to the source video, selecting the set of video snippets from the source video based on the set of transcoded video segments, and modifying a length of at least one of the set of video snippets to correspond to a length of the set of transcoded video segments;

join a subset of the video snippets to form a preview video, wherein the preview video is a subset of the source video;

receive, from a client device, a request for content for an account of the social media platform; and

provide, to the client device, the preview video for automatic playback by the client device in a playback area displayed inline with a message stream of the account.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein extracting the set of video snippets is further based on at least one selected from a group consisting of user demographics and user engagement activity for a user.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein extracting the set of video snippets comprises:

determining a category of the source video from a set of video categories; and

selecting the set of video snippets from the source video based on the category of the source video.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions are further configured to cause the computer processor to:

receive, from the client device, a request for the source video for playback for the context account of the social media platform;

provide an advertisement to be displayed in the playback area before providing the source video; and

provide the source video for playback in the playback area after receiving a confirmation message confirming that the advertisement was displayed.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein extracting the set of video snippets comprises:

receiving a set of provider video snippet timestamps and an associated set of provider video snippet durations from a content provider of the source video; and

selecting the set of video snippets from the source video based on the set of provider video snippet timestamps and the associated set of provider video snippet durations.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein extracting the set of video snippets comprises:

analyzing a set of video frames of the source video to detect a set of video transition timestamps; and

selecting the set of video snippets from the source video based on the set of video transition timestamps.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a plurality of instructions configured to execute on at least one computer processor to cause the computer processor to:

receive a source video for broadcast by a social media platform;

extract a set of video snippets from the source video, including identifying a set of transcoded video segments corresponding to the source video, selecting the set of video snippets from the source video based on the set of transcoded video segments, and modifying a length of at least one of the set of video snippets to correspond to a length of the set of transcoded video segments;

join a subset of the video snippets to form a preview video, wherein the preview video is a subset of the source video;

receive, from a client device, a request for content for an account of a social media platform; and

provide, to the client device, the preview video for automatic playback by the client device in a playback area displayed inline with a message stream of the account.

18. A method comprising:

receiving a source video for broadcast by a social media platform;

identifying a set of user engagements occurring during playback of the source video and a set of associated timestamps indicating when the set of user engagements occurred during playback of the source video, wherein the set of user engagements comprises social activity of a set of accounts of a social media platform with respect to the source video;

calculating a weight of the user engagements per unit time period of the source video;

identifying a set of high interest timestamps and a set of associated high interest values based on the weight of the user engagements during each of the video snippets;

identifying an advertisement timestamp of the source video from the set of high interest timestamps for inclusion of an advertisement; and

providing, for a client device, an advertisement for playback at the advertisement timestamp during playback of the source video.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

suspending a providing of the source video to the client device at the advertisement timestamp; and

providing the advertisement at the advertisement timestamp in the source video before resuming the providing of the source video.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising determining an advertisement cost based on the high interest value associated with the advertisement timestamp.