Patent Application
20070143788
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to digital television and, more particularly, to advertising within digital television. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to providing local information in a digital video stream.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, advertisers face a conundrum—they want to advertise on a national level by advertising during national television broadcasts; however, they cannot convey any localized information in a national commercial because it is being distributed to a national audience. This presents problems to many industries which rely on national advertising, but are franchised to local markets. Industries that face this problem include fast food chains, car dealerships, department stores, and the like.
The problem to the advertiser is how to keep the information in the commercial general enough for a national audience, but specific enough to provide information for each individual viewer. Currently, this is a very difficult balance that usually leaves the commercial lacking in one respect or the other. Many advertisers have opted instead to stick with the least common denominator and to provide information as broadly as possible.
Some advertisers attempt to work around this problem by attaching a local segment at the end of a commercial. A typical example is to use a normal thirty-two second advertising slot by dividing it into thirty seconds of national, broad information, followed by two seconds of local advertising information. However, this solution has the disadvantage of added cost for creating up to three hundred, or perhaps more, different commercials, which also have limited scope. For instance, the “local” information is typically for a major metropolitan area, which can be as large as hundreds of miles.
As a specific example, a fast food company may show a commercial during a nationally broadcast prime time program. The commercial would present a new sandwich, for example, that is being offered to every store in the country, but would not be able to tell the consumer the address of a nearby restaurant or the hours that restaurant is open. This information is obviously different for each localized subset of the viewership.
The present invention recognizes the disadvantages of the prior art and provides a mechanism in a digital video receiver for providing local information in a digital video stream. The digital video receiver receives a digital video stream, wherein the digital video stream has embedded therein a plurality of location information elements and localized information associated with each of the plurality of location information elements. The mechanism retrieves preconfigured location information and determines whether the preconfigured location information matches a given one of the plurality of location information elements. The mechanism then identifies localized information associated with the given one of the plurality of location information elements and presents the identified localized information with the digital video stream.
The novel features believed characteristic of the invention are set forth in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, as well as a preferred mode of use, further objectives and advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The present invention provides a method, apparatus, and computer program product for providing local information in a digital video stream. The data processing device may be a single-processor computing device, a multiprocessing data processing system, or a virtual processor environment in which multiple processors and multiple layers of software may be utilized to perform various aspects of the present invention. Therefore, the following
With reference now to
Television tuner/receiver 110 is connected to processor 102 through bus 106. Television tuner/receiver 110 may be, for example, a National Television System Committee (NTSC), Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) over the air (OTA) tuner. Alternatively, television tuner/receiver 110 may be a digital cable or digital satellite receiver. In yet another embodiment, television tuner/receiver 110 may be a television input port that receives an audio/video signal from an external tuner/receiver. Other receivers may also be used in place of television tuner/receiver 110, such as a satellite radio receiver or Internet Protocol television (IP-TV), for example.
Bus 106 also connects audio processor 114, video processor 116, read-only memory (ROM) 118, disk 120, and input device adapter 122 to processor 102. Audio processor 114 may provide audio processing, such as Dolby® Pro Logic® II or Dolby® Digital surround sound decoding. Video processor 116 may perform processing, such as MPEG2 or MPEG4 decoding. Disk 120 may be a hard disk drive (HDD) for storing media content streams. Input device adapter 122 may be, for example, an infrared (IR) remote control receiver, a keyboard/mouse adapter, or the like.
Television device 100 may also include optical disk reader 112, which may be, for example, a compact disk (CD) drive, digital video disk (DVD) drive, or the like. Modem 124 may be used to dial into a server to retrieve program guide information or the like. Universal Serial Bus (USB) and other ports 126 may be connected to processor 102 through bus 106. These ports may allow peripheral devices, such as printers, network adapters, etc., to be connected to television device 100. Local area network adapter 128 may allow television device 100 to share media content to other devices, to acquire program guide data, or to receive content of a program.
An operating system runs on processor 102 and is used to coordinate and provide control of various components within data processing system 100 in
Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the hardware in
Many television devices that receive digital television have a preconfigured local zoning improvement plan (ZIP) code or other location information. ZIP Code used to be a registered trademark of the United States Postal Service, but its registration has since expired. As an example, a satellite receiver typically asks for a ZIP code and provides directions to point the satellite dish according to the location of the dish based on the ZIP code. A digital satellite or digital cable receiver may also ask for a ZIP code to retrieve local programming information for the program guide.
In accordance with exemplary aspects of the present invention, television device 100 receives streaming video data with localized information embedded as metadata. Television device 100 examines the metadata and attempts to find a match with a preconfigured local ZIP code. In the metadata, each ZIP code is associated with localized information. If a match is found, the localized information associated with the local ZIP code is presented with the video data.
A television distributor, such as digital television distributor 220, is an entity that provides access to content, such as a cable provider, a satellite provider, or an Internet provider. A television distributor typically receives content from a content provider, such as a television studio, a movie studio, or an advertiser in this case. For example, Home Box Office, Inc. provides content to several satellite television providers and many cable television providers. Similarly, national advertisers may provide a commercial spot to many television distributors to be aired during particular programs.
Turning to
While the depicted example illustrates streaming video data, the streaming data may include audio data in addition to video data. In one alternative embodiment, the streaming data may be audio only. Satellite radio provides audio content. A small screen scrolls text about the audio content, such as artist name, song title, etc. During a commercial, the small screen displays text about the advertiser. In accordance with one exemplary embodiment, the advertiser text may be supplemented with localized information.
Also, the depicted example illustrates television broadcast. However, the streaming video data may be transmitted in other ways, such as on-demand streaming, Internet streaming, and the like.
Components shown in
Extraction module 340, which may be software running on processor 102 in
In the depicted example, the localized information is presented by overlaying the localized information onto the video presentation. However, other manners of presenting the localized information may be used. For example, a text-to-speech converter (not shown) may present the localized information as spoken content.
Extraction module 340 may be embodied as software within receiver 330. Alternatively, extraction module 340 may take the form of entirely hardware or a combination of hardware and software elements.
Each instance of local information has a ZIP code element and a local text element. The definition of localized information may vary depending upon the implementation. For example, local information may include images or sound in addition to or in place of text.
In the depicted example, a first instance of local information has a ZIP code of “78660.” The local text associated with this ZIP code is “Hours:8 am-11 pm.” A second instance defines a ZIP code of “90201” and local text as “Hours:9 am-10 pm.” The depicted metadata is meant as an example only and is not meant to imply limitations on the format or content of the localized information metadata. For instance, the local text element may be associated with a list or range of ZIP codes.
While the depicted examples illustrate a commercial with localized information, the video stream may be for other purposes. For example, a national morning news program may show a national weather forecast. In this case, the localized information may present local forecast information or instructions on how to obtain a local weather forecast, such as by providing a World Wide Web address for that forecast. As a further example, a music video channel may provide localized information about local retailers that sell compact discs for the currently playing artist.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory, transmission medium, or storage medium that can direct a processor or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory, transmission medium, or storage medium produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the functions specified in the flowchart block or blocks.
Accordingly, blocks of the flowchart illustrations support combinations of means for performing the specified functions, combinations of steps for performing the specified functions and computer usable program code for performing the specified functions. It will also be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based computer systems which perform the specified functions or steps, or by combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.
With particular reference to
The digital video provider then generates localized information metadata for the video stream (block 606). Next, the digital video provider embeds the localized information metadata in the streaming video data (block 608). Thereafter, the digital video provider transmits the streaming video data with embedded localized information to consumers (block 610), and operation ends.
Turning to
Next, the digital video receiver examines the metadata embedded in the video stream to find localized information (block 706). The receiver then attempts to match the preconfigured location information to the localized information embedded in the video stream (block 708). The receiver determines whether a match is found (block 710).
If a match is found, the digital video receiver overlays the localized information over the video data (block 712) and presents the video stream (block 714). If a match is not found in block 710, operation proceeds to block 714 to present the video stream. In another embodiment, the localized information is merged with the content stream. For example, if the localized information is presented as audio, the localized audio may be merged with the content stream.
After presenting the video data in block 714, the digital video receiver determines whether the end of the video stream is reached (block 716). If the end of the video stream is not reached, operation returns to block 704 to receive the streaming video data with embedded localized information. Otherwise, if the end of the video stream is reached in block 716, operation ends.
Thus, the aspects of the present invention solve the disadvantages of the prior art by providing localized information embedded as metadata within a digital video stream. A television receiver then compares the localized information with preconfigured location information. If a match is found, the television receiver presents the localized information with the video data.
The invention can take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment containing both hardware and software elements. In a preferred embodiment, the invention is implemented in software, which includes but is not limited to firmware, resident software, microcode, etc.
Furthermore, the invention can take the form of a computer program product accessible from a computer-usable or computer-readable medium providing program code for use by or in connection with a computer or any instruction execution system. For the purposes of this description, a computer-usable or computer readable medium can be any tangible apparatus that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.
The medium can be an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system (or apparatus or device) or a propagation medium. Examples of a computer-readable medium include a semiconductor or solid state memory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk and an optical disk. Current examples of optical disks include compact disk—read only memory (CD-ROM), compact disk—read/write (CD-R/W) and DVD.
A data processing system suitable for storing and/or executing program code will include at least one processor coupled directly or indirectly to memory elements through a system bus. The memory elements can include local memory employed during actual execution of the program code, bulk storage, and cache memories which provide temporary storage of at least some program code in order to reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from bulk storage during execution.
Input/output or I/O devices (including but not limited to keyboards, displays, pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to the system either directly or through intervening I/O controllers.
Network adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system to become coupled to other data processing systems or remote printers or storage devices through intervening private or public networks. Modems, cable modem and Ethernet cards are just a few of the currently available types of network adapters.
The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, and is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention, the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.
