Rentrak Corporation Patent applications |
Patent application number | Title | Published |
20140157293 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CLEANING TELEVISION VIEWING MEASUREMENT DATA - A system and method for cleaning television viewing behavior data collected from set top boxes by detecting and correcting various problems that can occur in the viewing data. Three problems that may be detected and corrected by the system include: overflows of memory buffers; inclusion of non-human generated tuning events; and presence of clock offsets. After cleaning the television viewing behavior data, the cleaned data may be used to analyze audience viewing behavior in a manner that achieves a higher degree of accuracy than can be achieved by using uncleaned television viewing behavior data. | 06-05-2014 |
20140081703 | SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR CALIBRATING USER AND CONSUMER DATA - A system and method that calibrates subject data for which a relationship to a target population is not known, so that the calibrated subject data can more accurately represent the target population. In many cases the calibration will involve the use of a differential weighting scheme applied to the data at the constituent level. The system and method allows the values of the observed variables in the subject data set to be weighted so that their incidence is equivalent to that of a reference population represented by a reference data set, even if the variables used in the reference data set to make estimates for the reference population were not collected or measured for the subject data set. | 03-20-2014 |
20140013345 | AGGREGATION-BASED METHODS FOR DETECTION AND CORRECTION OF TELEVISION VIEWERSHIP ABERRATIONS - Various of the disclosed embodiments contemplate television viewing behavior data collected from a plurality of television set top boxes by using aggregation to detect an excess or a deficit in viewership for a group of television set top boxes. In some embodiments, a group of set top boxes can be associated with a particular television service provider, cable television head-end, or data warehouse. Additionally, some embodiments can clean television viewing behavior data by detecting and correcting aberrant viewership in a time series, e.g. based on a weekly or an approximately monthly frequency. In some embodiments, the aberrant viewership can be detected by calculating a minimum expected number of viewers for a day and comparing it to the actual number of households that reported viewers for that day. | 01-09-2014 |
20130247080 | EMPIRICAL AD POD DETECTION - A system and method for analyzing the viewing behavior of end users that are viewing video content to determine the likely presence of one or more advertisements being viewed and to assess the viewers who stop viewing during the course of such advertisements. The system periodically or continuously receives tune data reflecting the viewing behavior of end users, analyzes the cumulative viewing behavior reflected by the received tune data, and delivers a report of the analysis to advertisers, agencies, media sellers, or other parties that are interested in measuring the effectiveness of advertisements on end users. The analysis by the system can be done over multiple different types of content-distribution platforms. | 09-19-2013 |
20130084056 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DETECTING NON-POWERED VIDEO PLAYBACK DEVICES - A method and system for identifying tune data from set top boxes associated with televisions, video monitors, or other video playback devices that are likely powered off. In some embodiments, survival curves are constructed that predict a length of time before a video playback device is powered off after a tuning event. The survival curves are used to predict the likelihood that a video playback device is powered off. Viewership estimates made from tune data reported from set top boxes can be adjusted to take account of the video playback devices that are predicted to be powered off. | 04-04-2013 |
20130013396 | SYSTEM AND METHOD TO PERFORM EXPOSURE AND CONVERSION ANALYSIS - A system and method to measure the effectiveness of advertisements. The effectiveness of a particular target portion of an advertising campaign (e.g., related to an advertisement or advertisements appearing on a specific network, time of the day, program, etc.) is determined relative to exposures to other portions of the advertising campaign. To facilitate the measurement, the system constructs an exposure interaction matrix, which allows isolation of the effectiveness of one group of advertisement exposures while controlling for exposures across other groups. For each cell of the matrix, the system computes an index. The index indicates how much the target advertisements influenced the conversion decision, relative to the entire campaign. A plurality of exposure interaction matrices may be determined for a plurality of target portions and compared to one another in order to determine a desired advertising schedule. | 01-10-2013 |
20090240572 | BUSINESS TRANSACTION REPORTING SYSTEM - An embodiment of the present invention provides a business transaction reporting system for use in tracking revenue from entertainment commodities distributed by one or more distribution parties. The distribution of the entertainment commodities is conducted through a plurality of entities that are independent from the distribution parties. In the embodiment, at least two of the entities are independent from one another. The system includes a plurality of point-of-sale (POS) computers operated at a plurality of locations. Each computer is operated by one of the independent entities and each POS computer hosts an application for recording entertainment unit transactions related to the entertainment commodities. The system further includes a central host computer system coupled to the POS computers to receive an accounting of the entertainment unit transactions, and a database configured to store, process, and report on the entertainment unit transactions. | 09-24-2009 |