GuideWorks, LLC. Patent applications |
Patent application number | Title | Published |
20100166389 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR INSERTING ADVERTISEMENTS DURING COMMERCIAL SKIP - Systems and methods for skipping advertisements while playing back a video that includes at least one advertisement are provided. When a user reaches the advertisement, the user may select to skip the advertisement. In response to the skip instruction, the interactive media guidance application may identify and display substitute media instead of the advertisement. The substitute media may be an image, a video frame, a video clip, a graphic, or any other suitable media. The interactive media guidance application may identify the substitute media to display from advertisement data associated with the skipped advertisement. The substitute media may be displayed for a designated length of time (e.g., less than the time it would take to fast forward past the advertisement). Once the time for displaying the substitute media has lapsed, the interactive media guidance application may resume playback of the video following the end of the advertisement. | 07-01-2010 |
20100162306 | USER INTERFACE FEATURES FOR INFORMATION MANIPULATION AND DISPLAY DEVICES - Systems and methods are provided for improving the market appeal and/or usability of information manipulation and/or display devices (IMDDs). | 06-24-2010 |
20100158479 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR RECORDING MULTIPLE PROGRAMS SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH A SINGLE TUNER - Systems and methods for simultaneously recording multiple programs using a single tuner. A content source generates a digital transport multiplex having multiple programs. An interactive television application tunes to the digital transport multiplex using a tuner and simultaneously records the programs. The content source may create a personalized digital transport multiplex having programs requested from one or more interactive television applications. | 06-24-2010 |
20100138882 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MANAGING LOCAL STORAGE OF ON-DEMAND CONTENT - On-demand systems and methods are provided to manage locally-stored on-demand content. A user's equipment controls the deletion of and/or access to on-demand content from a local storage device based on constraining criteria that may include rental conditions, dynamic factors, and keys. | 06-03-2010 |
20100135639 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR RECORDING AND PLAYING BACK PROGRAMS HAVING DESIRABLE RECORDING ATTRIBUTES - Systems and methods for recording multiple copies of a program are provided. The method may include receiving a user instruction to record a program. A determination may be made to record multiple copies of the program. In response to the determination, multiple copies of the program may be recorded. A user instruction to display the recorded program may be received. A copy of the program may be played back. The user may switch to another copy of the recorded program if the original copy lacks desirable recording attributes, or the interactive television application may automatically switch to another copy of the program. | 06-03-2010 |
20100122293 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DETECTING INCONSISTENT USER ACTIONS AND PROVIDING FEEDBACK - Systems and methods are provided for detecting inconsistent user actions and providing feedback about assets. A user may perform a first action restricting access to a first asset. The system may detect whether a second action performed relative to a second asset that has a similar attribute as the first asset is inconsistent with the first asset. The inconsistency may be detected when the second action removes or is an inaction that does not place access restrictions on the second asset. The system may alert the user about the inconsistency and the user may act on the alert by providing feedback about the inconsistency and/or the first/second asset, ignoring the inconsistency and/or placing an access restriction or other action consistent with the first action relative to the second asset. The user may also provide detailed feedback about an inconsistency or asset through a website accessed on another device. | 05-13-2010 |
20100119206 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR VIEWING SUBSTITUTE MEDIA WHILE FAST FORWARDING PAST AN ADVERTISEMENT - Systems and methods for displaying substitute media while fast forwarding past advertisements are provided. When a user reaches the advertisement, the interactive media guidance application may receive an instruction to fast forward the advertisement. In response to the fast forward instruction, the interactive media guidance application may identify and display substitute media instead of the advertisement. The substitute media may be an image, a video frame/clip, a graphic, an animated graphic, or any other suitable media. The substitute media may be distributed in the advertisement using any suitable method. For example, the substitute media may be incorporated in the video frames of the advertisement (e.g., overlaid in the video frames of the advertisement), added as hidden video frames distributed in the advertisement, or any other suitable approach. An advertisement tool for creating advertisements that include substitute media, and for previewing advertisements as they are fast forwarded is also provided. | 05-13-2010 |
20100086277 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DELETING VIEWED PORTIONS OF RECORDED PROGRAMS - Systems and methods are provided for deleting viewed portions of recorded programs. In one embodiment, a media guidance application may provide a list of recorded programs, where each recorded program in the list includes an indication of an amount of time that the recorded program has been viewed. From the list, a user may flag the viewed portions of one or more recorded programs for deletion. In some embodiments, the media guidance application may provide a delete prompt in response to a user command to pause or stop playback of a recorded program. The delete prompt may provide the user who is viewing the recorded program with the ability to choose to delete the portion of the program viewed thus far. For example, the delete prompt may prompt the user to delete a portion of the recorded program that starts at the beginning of the program and ends at substantially the position that the user stopped or paused the recorded program. | 04-08-2010 |
20090328105 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR RANKING ASSETS RELATIVE TO A GROUP OF VIEWERS - Systems and methods are provided for ranking assets relative to a group of viewers. A group is formed by a user by selecting a number of different viewer preference profiles or automatically by the system as a function of analyzing similarities among viewer preference profiles. Individual preference values are computed for each viewer in the group relative to an asset. A group preference value is then computed by performing a function on the individual preference values. A display is generated that represents the individual preference values and the group preference value relative to an asset. Based on the information provided in the display, the asset most relevant to the group may be selected. | 12-31-2009 |
20090178083 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR SELECTING MEDIA ASSETS FOR DISPLAY IN A SCREEN OF AN INTERACTIVE MEDIA GUIDANCE APPLICATION - A method and system of selecting assets for display in an interactive media guidance application includes receiving a user input indicating interest in a media item; generating a list of media assets related to the media item, selecting, based on priority rules, a subset of the media assets to display in an interactive media guidance application, and displaying an identifier for each of the subset of media assets in the interactive media guidance application screen. The priority rules may assign a first priority to one type of media asset and a second priority to a second type of media asset, and may be based on: whether the media asset has been viewed, and a respective time associated with the media asset. | 07-09-2009 |
20090165036 | Deleting two or more stored media program references based on at least one program reference attribute - Systems and methods for deleting one or more program references (e.g., file pointer, bookmark, and reminder). Each program reference may have a value for one or more associated program reference attributes (e.g., GENRE or CONTENT RATING). A user may provide an input identifying a value for a program reference attribute, and a media system may then delete all stored program references (e.g., DVR recording handles and VOD bookmarks) having a matching value for that attribute. Values for more than one program reference attribute may be provided along with logical operators (e.g., AND, OR or XOR) for combining those values. | 06-25-2009 |
20090100478 | Storage management of a recording device in a multi-user system - Systems and methods for managing the storage of recordings in a recording device in which the recordings were requested by several users are provided. Each user may be assigned a storage space limit defining the amount of storage space each user is entitled to use. In some embodiments, the storage space limit may be flexibly increased to take advantage of extra space available from other users. The system may intelligently borrow space from other users to limit the risk that a requested recording is canceled due to unavailable storage resources. In some embodiments, the system may jointly allocate a recording to several users who commonly requested a recording. The system may also set aside space in the recording device that is saved exclusively for a particular user. In some embodiments, the recording device may allocate the storage resources based on the usage of the recordings. | 04-16-2009 |