Placeshifting recommendations using geolocation and related systems and methods

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9923951-B2
Application number	US-201414225799-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 26, 2014
Priority date	Mar 26, 2014
Publication date	Mar 20, 2018
Grant date	Mar 20, 2018

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for placeshifting data. An exemplary method of placeshifting a media program from a source device to a destination device over a network involves obtaining location information associated with the destination device, determining, by a server coupled to the network, one or more recommended media programs available for streaming from the source device in a manner that is influenced by the location information, and providing indication of the one or more recommended media programs to the destination device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of placeshifting a media program from a media device to a destination device over a network, the method comprising:
obtaining, by a server coupled to the destination device over the network, a first geographic location associated with the destination device;
obtaining, by the server, a second geographic location associated with the media device associated with a user of the destination device, the media device including a receiver interface for receiving a plurality of broadcast media programs;
obtaining, by the server, a viewing history for the user of the destination device, the viewing history including previous viewing location information and viewing parameters associated with each of one or more previously viewed media programs;
filtering, by the server, the viewing history to identify a subset of the viewing history including one or more previously viewed media programs having associated previous viewing geographic location information that corresponds to locations at or within a threshold distance of the first geographic location of the destination device;
identifying, by the server, a type of media content as being relevant to the user at the first geographic location of the destination device based on the viewing parameters associated with each previously viewed media program of the subset of the viewing history, resulting in a relevant type of media content;
adjusting, by the server, one or more factors in a recommendation algorithm to increase a recommendation metric value for the relevant type of media content based on a distance between the first geographic location and the second geographic location;
identifying, by the server, one or more of the plurality of broadcast media programs of the relevant type that are available at the media device as one or more recommended media programs available for streaming from the media device using the recommendation algorithm with the adjusted one or more factors; and
providing, by the server, indication of the one or more recommended media programs to the destination device via the network.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, by the server, indication of a selected media program of the one or more recommended media programs from the destination device;
providing, by the server, streaming instructions for the selected media program to the media device, wherein the media device initiates a placeshifting session for streaming the selected media program to the destination device over the network in response to the streaming instructions.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining the distance between the first geographic location and the second geographic location, wherein identifying the one or more recommended media programs comprises determining the one or more recommended media programs based at least in part on the distance.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein identifying the one or more recommended media programs comprises:
identifying the type of media content as being of interest to the user of the destination device based on the distance.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying a market area associated with the first geographic location of the destination device, wherein:
identifying the one or more recommended media programs comprises identifying the one or more broadcast media programs of the relevant type that are unavailable within the market area; and
providing the indication of the one or more recommended media programs to the destination device comprises identifying the one or more broadcast media programs unavailable within the market area on the destination device as the one or more recommended media programs.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying a home market area associated with the media device, wherein:
identifying the one or more recommended media programs comprises identifying the one or more broadcast media programs of the relevant type that are unavailable outside of the home market area; and
providing the indication of the one or more recommended media programs to the destination device comprises identifying the one or more broadcast media programs unavailable outside of the home market area on the destination device.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising obtaining the plurality of broadcast media programs capable of being received by the media device via the receiver interface associated with the media device, wherein the one or more recommended media programs comprise a subset of the plurality of broadcast media programs.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
receiving, by the server from the destination device, indication of a selected broadcast media program from among the subset of the plurality of broadcast media programs;
providing, by the server, streaming instructions for the selected broadcast media program to the media device, wherein the media device initiates a placeshifting session for streaming the selected broadcast media program from the receiver interface to the destination device over the network in response to the streaming instructions.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising identifying a market area associated with the destination device based on the first geographic location, wherein the one or more recommended media programs include the one or more broadcast media programs of the relevant type that are unavailable within the market area.

10. The method of claim 7 , further comprising identifying a home market area associated with the media device, wherein the one or more recommended media programs include the one or more broadcast media programs of the relevant type that are unavailable outside of the home market area.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the viewing history includes previous viewing geographic location information and viewing parameters associated with each of one or more previously viewed media programs; and
identifying the one or more recommended media programs comprises determining a broadcast media program is relevant based on the viewing parameters associated with the one or more previously viewed media programs and a relationship between the previous viewing geographic location information associated with the one or more previously viewed media programs and the first geographic location of the destination device.

12. The method of claim 11 , the viewing history comprising a plurality of previously viewed media programs, wherein the method further comprises identifying the one or more previously viewed media programs from among the plurality based on the previous viewing geographic location information associated with the one or more previously viewed media programs being at or within a threshold distance of the first geographic location of the destination device.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processing system of the server, cause the processing system to perform the method of claim 1 .

14. A system comprising:
a set-top box coupled to a network, the set-top box including a receiver interface capable of receiving a plurality of broadcast media programs; and
a server coupled to the network to:
obtain a first geographic location associated with a client device coupled to the network;
obtain a second geographic location associated with the set-top box associated with a user of the client device;
obtain a viewing history for the user of the client device that includes previous viewing geographic location information and viewing parameters associated with each of one or more

Assignees

• Sling Media Inc
• Sling Media LLC

Inventors

• Dimov Dmitry

Classifications

• H04L67/10 Primary

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• H04L65/1083

  In-session procedures · CPC title

• H04L67/125

  involving control of end-device applications over a network · CPC title

• H04L65/4069

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L67/18

  Electricity · mapped topic