| Patent application number | Description | Published |
| 20080306818 | MULTI-CLIENT STREAMER WITH LATE BINDING OF AD CONTENT - A late-binding multi-client streamer utilizing Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) transfers to obtain video and advertisement content is provided. For each client device, the streamer receives a video content selection. In response, the streamer initiates an RDMA transfer of the video content or a segment of the video content from a storage device of a video content server to an associated video buffer and begins streaming the video content from the video buffer to the client device. When an upcoming advertisement slot in the video content is detected, the streamer initiates an RDMA transfer of an advertisement for the ad slot from a storage device associated with an advertisement content server to an associated ad buffer. The streamer then inserts the advertisement from the ad buffer into the ad slot in the video content as the video content is streamed to the client device. | 12-11-2008 |
| 20080313029 | PUSH-CACHING SCHEME FOR A LATE-BINDING ADVERTISEMENT ARCHITECTURE - A system providing late-binding of advertisements to video content and incorporating a push-caching scheme is disclosed. In general, the system includes an advertisement server located at a central location such as a central headend and a number of late-binding systems located at locations such as a number of remote headends. The late-binding systems are connected to the advertisement server via a Wide Area Network (WAN). Each of the late-binding systems is also connected to an associated advertisement cache via a Local Area Network (LAN). A cache assignment agent associated with the advertisement server operates to push advertisements to the advertisement caches associated with the late-binding systems in a predictive fashion based on, for example, historical information for the late-binding systems and/or profiles of users or viewers associated with the client devices served by the late-binding systems. | 12-18-2008 |
| 20100100627 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR BYPASSING AN ACCESS POINT IN A LOCAL AREA NETWORK FOR P2P DATA TRANSFERS - A system and method for bypassing an access point in a wireless Local Area Network (LAN) for direct point-to-point data transfers are provided. A user device in the wireless LAN is equipped with a primary local wireless interface establishing a wireless communication link with an access point of the wireless LAN, a secondary local wireless interface used for direct point-to-point (P2P) file transfers, and a P2P file transfer application. When the P2P application desires to transfer a data file to another user device within the wireless LAN, the user device determines whether the other user device is within a coverage area of the secondary local wireless interface and whether the file transfer meets one or more alternate transfer criterion. If so, the data file is transferred to the other user device via a direct P2P wireless communication link, thereby bypassing the access point of the wireless LAN. | 04-22-2010 |
| 20100208819 | CLIENT-SIDE WATERMARKING USING HYBRID I-FRAMES - A system and method for client-side watermarking of digital content using hybrid Intra-Frames (I-Frames) are provided. In general, a content source provides a compressed video stream and a hybrid I-Frame stream to a client device via a network. The hybrid I-Frame stream includes a number of low-loss I-Frames corresponding to select ones of the I-Frames in the compressed video stream to be used for client-side watermarking. The client device watermarks the I-Frames in the hybrid I-Frame stream, optionally compresses the watermarked I-Frames, and replaces the select ones of the I-Frames in the compressed video stream with the watermarked and optionally compressed I-Frames to provide a watermarked version of the compressed video stream. | 08-19-2010 |
| 20110125861 | SYSTEM AND METHOD PROVIDING PEER REVIEW AND DISTRIBUTION OF DIGITAL CONTENT - A digital content review and distribution system and method are provided. In general, a number of authors of digital content register with a content review and distribution agent, which may be hosted by a central server. The authors agree to review digital content submitted by other authors in exchange for review and distribution of their own content. In operation, an author submits metadata associated with digital content to be reviewed and optionally the digital content to the content review and distribution agent. In response to the submission, the content review and distribution agent effects a review of the digital content by one or more groups of reviewers, where the groups of reviewers are selected from the other authors registered with the content review and distribution agent based on the metadata for the digital content and reviewer credentials of the other authors. | 05-26-2011 |
| 20110145935 | INTERCONNECT DEVICE TO ENABLE COMPLIANCE WITH RIGHTS MANAGEMENT RESTRICTIONS - To help ensure that only authorized media content that is associated with rights management (RM) restrictions is delivered from a compliant RM interface of a source device to a non-compliant RM interface of a destination device, an interconnect device provides a compliant RM interface to connect to the source device and monitors media content received from the source device to detect an embedded digital watermark. The interconnect device takes the necessary steps to determine if the watermark is authentic and control delivery of the media content to the destination device accordingly. The interconnect device may go back to the source device or to a remote service to authenticate the watermark. If the watermark is authentic, the media content is passed by the interconnect device to the non-compliant interface of the destination device outside of normal RM restrictions. Otherwise, the delivery of the media content is restricted by the interconnect device. | 06-16-2011 |
| 20110170688 | CLIENT-SIDE PROTECTION OF BROADCAST OR MULTICAST CONTENT FOR NON-REAL-TIME PLAYBACK - A system and method are disclosed for providing client-side protection of broadcast or multicast multimedia content for non-real-time playback. A set-top box function receives a request to record multimedia content and determines whether recording of the multimedia content is restricted. Upon receiving the multimedia content, the set-top box decrypts the multimedia content for real-time playback. If recording of the multimedia content is restricted, the set-top box re-encrypts the multimedia content and generates a packaged file including the re-encrypted multimedia content and one or more of a content identifier, a set-top identifier, a network reference to a copyright policy server, and a record policy of the multimedia content. The packaged file is either stored locally or transferred to remote storage. A remote system having access to the packaged file obtains the packaged file and enforces a copyright policy of the multimedia content before releasing the multimedia content for non-real-time playback. | 07-14-2011 |
| 20110261998 | SELECTION OF I-FRAMES FOR CLIENT-SIDE WATERMARKING - A system and method are provided for selecting frames of a compressed video stream that may be used for client-side watermarking. In general, a content source evaluates a number of Intra-Frames (I-Frames) in the compressed video stream using a sample watermark that is similar to actual watermarks that may be used for client-side watermarking. More specifically, each of a number of I-Frames in the compressed video stream is evaluated by first watermarking the I-Frame with the sample watermark. Associated frames in the compressed video stream are then decoded using the watermarked I-Frame. An error value for the decoded video frames is then computed. If the error value is outside of a predetermined error threshold range, the I-Frame is selected as an I-Frame that may be used for client-side watermarking. | 10-27-2011 |