Scheme for determining the locations and timing of advertisements and other insertions in media

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9237258-B2
Application number	US-201414151536-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 9, 2014
Priority date	Mar 22, 2007
Publication date	Jan 12, 2016
Grant date	Jan 12, 2016

Abstract

A method for use with content includes analyzing a sequence of frames of the content, determining whether an area exists in a scene depicted by the sequence of frames where additional content such as advertising can be inserted without obstructing activity in the scene, for any such area, determining an amount of time that the area is available when the sequence of frames is being played, and for any such area, determining a size of the area. A storage medium storing a computer program for causing a processor based system to execute these steps and an apparatus for use with content are also disclosed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
analyzing a sequence of frames of content;
based on the analyzing, determining information about objects moving in the frames;
creating metadata comprising the information about objects moving in the frames that can be used to determine whether an area exists in a scene depicted by the sequence of frames where additional content can be inserted without obstructing an activity in the scene;
using the metadata to determine whether an area exists in the scene where additional content can be inserted without obstructing the activity in the scene;
for any such area, determining a size of the area;
selecting the additional content based at least in part on an analysis of the size of the area to determine between displaying only one advertisement and displaying a plurality of advertisements together in the area; and
in response to determining to display a plurality of advertisements, causing the plurality of advertisements to be displayed together in the area in the scene.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
encoding the content with the metadata.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
configuring the metadata and the content to be provided to a playback system for insertion of content.

4. A non-transitory storage medium storing a computer program executable by a processor based system, the computer program causing the processor based system to execute steps comprising:
analyzing a sequence of frames of content;
based on the analyzing, determining information objects moving in the frames;
creating metadata comprising the information about objects moving in the frames that can be used to determine whether an area exists in a scene depicted by the sequence of frames where additional content can be inserted without obstructing an activity in the scene;
using the metadata to determine whether an area exists in the scene where additional content can be inserted without obstructing the activity in the scene;
for any such area, determining a size of the area;
selecting the additional content based at least in part on an analysis of the size of the area to determine between displaying only one advertisement and displaying a plurality of advertisements together in the area; and
in response to determining to display a plurality of advertisements, causing the plurality of advertisements to be displayed together in the area in the scene.

5. The non-transitory storage medium in accordance with claim 4 , wherein the computer program further causes the processor based system to execute steps comprising:
encoding the content with the metadata.

6. The non-transitory storage medium in accordance with 4 , wherein the computer program further causes the processor based system to execute steps comprising:
configuring the metadata and the content to be provided to a playback system for insertion of content.

7. An apparatus for use with content, comprising:
a processor based system that is configured to analyze a sequence of frames of content and, based on the analyzing, determine information about objects moving in the frames;
wherein the processor based system is further configured to create metadata comprising the information about objects moving in the frames that can be used to determine whether an area exists in a scene depicted by the sequence of frames where additional content can be inserted without obstructing an activity in the scene; and
wherein the metadata is used to determine whether an area exists in the scene where additional content can be inserted without obstructing the activity in the scene, and for any such area, a size of the area is determined; and
wherein the additional content is selected based at least in part on an analysis of the size of the area to determine between displaying only one advertisement and displaying a plurality of advertisements together in the area, and in response to determining to display a plurality of advertisements, the plurality of advertisements is caused to be displayed together in the area in the scene.

Assignees

• Sony Comp Entertainment Us

Inventors

• Zalewski Gary M

Classifications

• H04N21/44012

  involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs · CPC title

• H04N21/4307

  Synchronising the rendering of multiple content streams or additional data on devices, e.g. synchronisation of audio on a mobile phone with the video output on the TV screen · CPC title

• H04N5/147 Primary

  Scene change detection · CPC title

• H04N21/8583

  by creating hot-spots · CPC title

• H04N21/812

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