Providing secondary media content via a subdivision of a picture area

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017201784-A1
Application number	US-201715410365-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jan 19, 2017
Priority date	Nov 12, 2004
Publication date	Jul 13, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

The invention relates to a method and system to communicate primary and secondary content streams to at least one remote unit, for example, via a television channel in a targeted television environment. The secondary content stream comprises a plurality of tertiary content streams (e.g., video streams) providing commercials, advertisements or any other content. The tertiary content streams are included in the secondary content stream as a mosaic so that each tertiary content stream is a subset or portion of an active display area or frame provided by the single secondary content stream. In one exemplary embodiment, the method and system provide targeted or specific commercial advertisements to demographically selected audiences.

First claim

1 . A method comprising:
identifying, by at least one processor, a first data stream that includes primary media content; selecting, by the at least one processor, multiple secondary media content targeted at a geographic area; combining, by the at least one processor, the selected multiple secondary media content into a second data stream to be provided to a device in the geographic area, the second data stream having a picture area with subdivisions that each include different secondary media content among the multiple secondary media content; and providing, by the at least one processor, the second data stream to the device in the geographic area along with information that indicates a location of a subdivision among the subdivisions and causes the device to crop the subdivision based on its indicated location and present the cropped subdivision in place of the primary media content.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the information provided along with the second data stream to the device causes the device to replace the primary media content with the cropped subdivision whose location is indicated by the provided information.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the information provided along with the second data stream to the device indicates the location of the subdivision among the subdivisions of the picture area by including coordinates of the subdivision.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the information provided along with the second data stream to the device includes indicates the location of the subdivision among the subdivisions of the picture area by including an identifier of the subdivision.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the information provided along with the second data stream to the device causes the device to scale the cropped subdivision to fill the picture area of the second data stream.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the information provided along with the second data stream to the device causes the device to present the cropped subdivision without scaling in a subset of the picture area of the second data stream.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the information provided along with the second data stream to the device causes the device to crop and present multiple subdivisions among the subdivisions of the picture area of the second data stream, the multiple subdivisions including the subdivision indicated by the provided information.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the information provided along with the second data stream to the device causes the device to exclusively present the cropped subdivision in place of the primary media content.

9 . A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:
identifying a first data stream that includes primary media content; selecting multiple secondary media content targeted at a geographic area; combining the selected multiple secondary media content into a second data stream to be provided to a device in the geographic area, the second data stream having a picture area with subdivisions that each include different secondary media content among the multiple secondary media content; and providing the second data stream to the device in the geographic area along with information that indicates a location of a subdivision among the subdivisions and causes the device to crop the subdivision based on its indicated location and present the cropped subdivision in place of the primary media content.

10 . A system comprising:
one or more processors; and a memory storing instructions that, when executed by at least one processor among the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising: identifying a first data stream that includes primary media content; selecting multiple secondary media content targeted at a geographic area; combining the selected multiple secondary media content into a second data stream to be provided to a device in the geographic area, the second data stream having a picture area with subdivisions that each include different secondary media content among the multiple secondary media content; and providing the second data stream to the device in the geographic area along with information that indicates a location of a subdivision among the subdivisions and causes the device to crop the subdivision based on its indicated location and present the cropped subdivision in place of the primary media content.

11 . A method comprising:
accessing, by at least one processor, a first data stream that includes primary media content; accessing, by the at least one processor, a second data stream having a picture area with subdivisions that each include different secondary media content among multiple secondary media content included in the second data stream, the second data stream being accessed along with information that indicates a location of a subdivision among the subdivisions; cropping, by the at least one processor, a subdivision identified among the subdivisions based on the indicated location of the subdivision; and causing, by the at least one processor, presentation of the cropped subdivision in place of the primary media content.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein:
the causing of the presentation of the cropped subdivision in place of the primary media content includes replacing the primary media content with the cropped subdivision.

13 . The method of claim 11 , wherein:
the information accessed along with the second data stream indicates the location of the subdivision among the subdivisions of the picture area by including coordinates of the subdivision.

14 . The method of claim 11 , wherein:
the information accessed along with the second data stream includes indicates the location of the subdivision among the subdivisions of the picture area by including an identifier of the subdivision.

15 . The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
scaling the cropped subdivision to fill the picture area of the second data stream.

16 . The method of claim 11 , wherein:
the causing of the presentation of the cropped subdivision in place of the primary media content includes presenting the cropped subdivision without scaling in a subset of the picture area of the second data stream.

17 . The method of claim 11 , wherein:
the information accessed along with the second data stream indicates multiple locations of multiple subdivisions among the subdivisions of the picture area of the second data stream; the cropping of the subdivision is performed as part of cropping the multiple subdivisions whose multiple locations are indicated by the information accessed along with the second data stream; and the causing of the presentation of the cropped subdivision in place of the primary media content is performed as part of causing presentation of the multiple cropped subdivisions in place of the primary media content.

18 . The method of claim 11 , wherein:
the causing of the presentation of the cropped subdivision in place of the primary media content includes exclusively presenting the cropped subdivision in place of the primary media content.

19 . A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:
accessing a first data stream that includes primary media content; accessing a second dat

Assignees

• Opentv Inc

Inventors

• Zdepski Joel

Classifications

• H04N21/812

  involving advertisement data (advertising per se G06Q30/02) · CPC title

• H04N21/25883

  being end-user demographical data, e.g. age, family status or address (arrangements for identifying locations of users in broadcast systems H04H60/52) · CPC title

• H04N21/23424

  involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement · CPC title

• H04N21/2668 Primary

  Creating a channel for a dedicated end-user group, e.g. insertion of targeted commercials based on end-user profiles {(information retrieval from the Internet by querying with filtering and personalisation G06F16/9535; arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast H04H20/10; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; adaptation of message content in packet-switching networks H04L51/063)} · CPC title

• H04N21/234363 Primary

  by altering the spatial resolution, e.g. for clients with a lower screen resolution · CPC title