Monitoring and activity reporting of enhanced media content

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10771827-B2
Application number	US-201113114729-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 24, 2011
Priority date	May 24, 2011
Publication date	Sep 8, 2020
Grant date	Sep 8, 2020

Abstract

A monitoring and analysis system is disclosed that gathers and analyzes information about distributed enhanced content delivery to end user or other equipment. The system may establish communications connections along the content delivery system, filter content received from different locations of the system, and compare the received content with an expected content characteristic. Also, a radio frequency signal from the distribution network may be converted into an Internet Protocol (IP) format by a converter so that the transformed signal may be similarly analyzed as other signals from the system. A report may be consequently generated that is indicative of the received enhanced content and any detected discrepancies with respect to expected enhancement events. Identification of the enhanced content may be based on the program association table and the program map table in order to determine the packet ID of the application signals.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
causing, by one or more computing devices, establishment of connections with a plurality of devices in a content delivery network, wherein each of the plurality of devices is associated with a different distribution portion of the content delivery network;
receiving, from the plurality of devices and via the content delivery network, first event data indicating start times of an enhancement event associated with enhanced media content delivered via the content delivery network;
receiving, from the plurality of devices and via the content delivery network, second event data indicating end times of the enhancement event;
determining, by the one or more computing devices, based on a comparison of each of the start times to a scheduled start time associated with the enhancement event, and based on a comparison of each of the end times to a scheduled end time associated with the enhancement event, one or more discrepancies in delivery of the enhanced media content via the content delivery network; and
generating, by the one or more computing devices, a report indicating the one or more discrepancies and indicating at least one device, of the plurality of devices, as a cause of the one or more discrepancies.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
converting the enhanced media content from a quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) format to a format for transmission over an Internet Protocol (IP) network.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
generating an indicator that is indicative of whether a time of reception of the first enhanced media content is in accordance with the enhancement event.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the causing the establishment of the connections comprises causing joining of an Internet Protocol (IP) multicast group.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
obtaining packet IDs (PIDs) for the enhanced media content; and
receiving the enhanced media content based on the PIDs.

6. An apparatus comprising:
one or more processors; and
memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the apparatus to:
cause establishment of connections with a plurality of devices in a content delivery network, wherein each of the plurality of devices is associated with a different distribution portion of the content delivery network;
receive, from the plurality of devices and via the content delivery network, first event data indicating start times of an enhancement event associated with enhanced media content delivered via the content delivery network;
receive, from the plurality of devices and via the content delivery network, second event data indicating end times of the enhancement event;
determine, based on a comparison of each of the start times to a scheduled start time associated with the enhancement event, and based on a comparison of each of the end times to a scheduled end time associated with the enhancement event, one or more discrepancies in delivery of the enhanced media content via the content delivery network; and
generate a report indicating the one or more discrepancies and indicating at least one device, of the plurality of devices, as a cause of the one or more discrepancies.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the apparatus to:
convert the enhanced media content from a quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) format to a format for transmission over an Internet Protocol (IP) network.

8. A method comprising:
establishing, by one or more computing devices, connections with a plurality of devices, wherein each of the plurality of devices is associated with a different distribution portion of a content delivery network;
receiving, from the plurality of devices and via the content delivery network, first event data indicating start times of an enhancement event associated with enhanced media content delivered via the content delivery network;
receiving, from the plurality of devices and via the content delivery network, second event data indicating end times of the enhancement event;
determining, by the one or more computing devices, based on a comparison of each of the start times to a scheduled start time associated with the enhancement event, and based on a comparison of each of the end times to a scheduled end time associated with the enhancement event, one or more discrepancies in delivery of the enhanced media content via the content delivery network; and
generating, by the one or more computing devices, a report indicating the one or more discrepancies and indicating a corresponding distribution portion of at least one device, of the plurality of devices, as a cause of the one or more discrepancies.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of devices comprise one or more of a user device or an edge modulation device.

10. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the plurality of devices comprise one or more of a user device or an edge modulation device.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the plurality of devices comprise one or more of a user device or an edge modulation device.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a missing enhanced media content that has not been received from the at least one device according to the first scheduled start time associated with the first enhancement event.

13. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
converting the enhanced media content from a quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) format to a format for transmission over an Internet Protocol (IP) network.

14. The method of claim 8 , wherein the enhanced media content is received by the one or more computing devices at a time of reception, the method further comprising:
comparing the time of reception with a scheduled time of reception associated with the enhanced media content.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the enhancement event is associated with second enhanced media content delivered via the content delivery network, the method further comprising:
receiving, by the one or more computing devices, a time of reception of the second enhanced media content; and
generating, by the one or more computing devices, a second report comprising a duration associated with the enhanced media content, wherein the duration comprises an interval between the time of reception of the second enhanced media content and a time of reception of the enhanced media content.

16. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
tracking, by the one or more computing devices, the enhancement event at different distribution portions of the content delivery network based on extracting one or more application signals associated with the enhanced media content.

17. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
tracking, by the one or more computing devices, the enhancement event at different distribution portions of the content delivery network based on extracting one or more application signals associated with the enhanced media content.

18. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of devices comprise one or more of a multiplexer, an aggregated multiplexer, an ad splicer, or an edge modulation device.

19. The method of claim 1 , wherein the enhancement event comprises enhanced television (ETV) applications.

20. The method of claim 1 , wherein the enhanced media content comprises at least one of an ETV integrated signaling stream (EISS), or a digital storage media command and control (DSM-CC)

Assignees

• Van Doorn Jan
• Field Brian
• Groustra Daniel P
• Torluemke Mark
• Hall Jr James Hamilton
• Comcast Cable Comm Llc

Inventors

• Van Doorn Jan
• Field Brian
• Groustra Daniel P
• Torluemke Mark
• Hall Jr James Hamilton

Classifications

• H04N21/44224

  Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing · CPC title

• H04N21/252 Primary

  Processing of multiple end-users' preferences to derive collaborative data · CPC title

• H04N21/8545

  for generating interactive applications · CPC title

• H04N21/8352

  involving content or source identification data, e.g. Unique Material Identifier [UMID] · CPC title

• H04N21/8126

  involving additional data, e.g. news, sports, stocks, weather forecasts · CPC title