DE10106256A1 - Method for playing in a live TV transmission in a commercial (publicity or advertising) block, requires time slot being integrated into block prior to transmission - Google Patents

Abstract

A method for playing in at least one live television (TV) transmission in a permanently stored commercial (publicity/advertising) block on a digital video server, in which the time slot provided for the live transmission is integrated into the commercial (publicity etc) block before the transmission.

Description

The invention relates to a method for importing a Live television broadcast, especially in an advertising block. The The invention also relates to a divided into several parts Image of a television screen.

In principle, private television channels that are not operated by state funds have two possible financing options. The so-called pay TV receives income directly from the television viewer either through monthly fees or a fee for each film accessed. The television channels of Premiere World, for example, work according to this business model. The so-called free TV, on the other hand, is financed worldwide through advertising or promotion. Examples of ad-financed free TV channels are Pro Sieben, Sat 1 , Kabel 1 or MBC.

Classic television advertising exists in most cases from recorded, short commercials from approx. 5 to 30 Seconds in length, so-called commercials or trailers, in to which companies offer their products and services. Here, several individual commercials are combined in one ten advertising block or an advertising island summarized  and broadcast one after the other. Overall, it results thus a total running time of the advertising block of a few minutes These advertising blocks are placed between two successive TV programs such as news programs, feature films men, travel reports, TV series, shows or presentations broadcasts or interrupt individual, long other television programs such as feature films. The ge legally permitted maximum lengths of the advertising blocks or the individual commercials and their frequency depends on the advertising guidelines of the respective State media authorities.

The broadcast process of a free TV station is usually included a lead time of 6 weeks and sent to the press Publication in the relevant TV magazines forwarded. The advertising blocks are already there fixed, but not yet in terms of content. Just three days before The advertising blocks are included in the respective broadcast fixed, d. H. the commercials defined. After the The entire program of the Free- TV station. Be in the exact order Feature films, news programs, shows, trailers, advertising blocks etc. played.

As a mediator of the content of the commercials, an advertising time marketer, such as the company 71 Media, usually acts, who, together with the individual advertising media, produces the commercials for the television stations.

Technically, the commercials are nowadays produced using digital broadcasting technology. The advertisements pre-produced by the advertising time marketer in cooperation with the advertising customer are generally available on an analogue or digital data carrier. Current standards for analog image data carriers are the Digi-Beta video magnetic tape, the 1 or 2 inch magnetic tape or the HD video magnetic tape. In the digital field, the DVD (digital video disc) or CD-Rom serve as image data carriers. The analog image data are digitally scanned and compressed using the MPEG 2 compression process, which has become the standard worldwide, and transmitted to the digital video server. Manufacturers of such digital video servers are, for example, the companies ASC-Leitch or Techtronic with their headquarters in the USA. The current loading capacity of a digital video server is in the range of 6 terabits per second, which means that 22 channels are available for importing and exporting video signals.

The advertising blocks are thus available on the server as compressed MPEG 2 data so that they can be read out at a given transmission time, controlled by a central control unit (Automatic Device System (ADC 100 )). For this purpose, the commercials are decompressed again during the course of the program and converted into a digital video signal, which is then broadcast to the households as a composite signal (color-picture-blanking-synchronous signal) via terrestrial lines or digitally via a digital satellite. This video signal of the advertising block, which is present in digital form on the video server, is broadcast unchanged in the current state of the art.

The invention provides a method for importing minde At least one live broadcast in one on a digital Vi deoserver permanently stored advertising block of a television ready. The time earmarked for the live recording window is fixed in before the advertisement is broadcast integrated the advertising block.

The invention also relates to a ge in several areas split image of a television screen in which at least a live broadcast on an area of the divided image shines.

A live broadcast is a television broadcast where the recording takes place simultaneously with the broadcast place. The video signals are in real time from opening Transfer location to the broadcast center and directly out shine.  

The term advertising block is used in media language a sequence of commercials following one after the other together, the total duration of which is usually a few minutes ten. The airtime of the individual commercials is about between 5 and 30 seconds. With time window is in this context, a fixed, time-defi ned area of the advertising block meant in which the advertising block for other programs, and especially for livesen interruptions. Ty has such a time window typically a running time of approx. 30 seconds, that is it is of the same order of magnitude as the individual who bespots, where the start and end times are fixed are.

The entire advertising block is usually in a digital format Format on a commercially available video server stores. However, it is not possible to do this internally to play a live broadcast in such an advertising block len. The entire advertising block with all content and initial or end times is thus determined before the broadcast. The invention solves this problem particularly advantageously by being a time fen within this ad block provides for a live broadcast later is playing. An advertising block can also last several times include windows to record live broadcasts.

As live broadcasts come for the inventive method any programs in question where the broadcast and Recording take place at the same time. To make the Advertising blocks within which the live broadcast is broadcast is going to increase for the viewer, especially offer advantageous quiz programs, games shows, permanent commercials or so-called hotline shipments. For quizzes and Games shows are under the guidance of a moderator and the Involving the audience question games and other games carried out. Permanent mailings or advertising copies with audience awards and opportunities to win TV viewers are generally not used to promote  a single product, but for multiple products from different product providers at the same time, the Who effect is packed with a high entertainment character. The so-called hotline shipments mediate service Telephone numbers, Internet addresses or other product information mations in compact and compressed form.

Nowadays, digital technology is used almost exclusively to store video signals from advertising programs. The large amount of data that arises in the digitization of image signals, that is to say two-dimensional signals, is due to the fact that for each pixel (pixel) one brightness value for black and white images or three color values for color images must be stored. In view of the high image resolutions common today, ie the high number of pixels and the high refresh rates, video sequences of just a few minutes result in data volumes in the range of several gigabytes. Because of this enormous amount of data, an efficient compression process is of particular importance. The MPEG 2 compression method based on a mathematical wavelet transformation has become the worldwide standard and is also used in the method according to the invention. The high compression rates are based in principle on the observation that for most image sequences the image contents change only slightly from one image to the next for a large part of the image areas and therefore only these are transmitted. By restricting the transmission to changing image information, a considerable reduction in the data to be transmitted is possible. The new versions of the MPEG compression process (MPEG 3 , MPEG 4 , MPEG 5 , etc.), which are currently still in the development stage, are particularly advantageous for the present invention. For broadcasting, the compressed stored video data is then decompressed again using the inverse method and sent as a digital video signal.

It is particularly preferred as a video signal during the Sen a constant background signal applies. On the one hand, this has the advantage that it is op table clearly from the video signal of the commercials below separates, and on the other hand an extremely effective Kompri saved data allowed. The latter is due the fact that the MPEG compression method is in progress le of the entire image information only changes of the image keep saving from one picture to the next. But there with a constant image signal, the image content does not change from changing one picture to the next can be the maximum possible Compression rates can be achieved. Particularly suitable as a constant background signal, for example, a black image sequence. Will represent this constant background signal in addition, an indication of the temporal progress of the Overlapping the time window, the transmission control or the host of the live broadcast the time synchronization of the live broadcast with the time window of the advertising block facilitated. Particularly suitable for such a time show a faded in the constant background image Clock or a counter, which is about for the time window 30 seconds available or the currently still ver remaining time indicates.

The signal of the live broadcast is synchronized with time the time window of the advertising block exactly in the place of Background signal recorded. This technique allows in a simple way the permanently stored advertising block Live broadcast, d. H. one until the advertising block is broadcast still variable transmission part, overlay.

A particularly attractive range of information can TV viewers with the help of the so-called "split screen" - Technology are taught. This is for this procedure Image imported during the time window of the advertising block signal divided into several areas on the screen preferably separated from each other by lines on the screen become. In the areas you can now under different contents are presented, so that the viewer  for example, in addition to an entertaining quiz show in the Main window still in a text window for example the ak current stock exchange prices or weather information the while in another image section (window) Advertising banners expire. This technique allows the long distance viewing spectator during an information or conversation to confront the broadcast with advertising.

The signal of the live broadcast is particularly preferred in the Method according to the invention from the recording location by satellite or a so-called terrestrial line laid on the ground to the location of the digital video server that is in the Is usually in the send center.

The invention is now based on preferred, exemplary th embodiments and the exemplary shown Drawings explained in more detail. In the schematic drawings show:

Figure 1 is a schematic representation of the transmission process.

Fig. 2 is a schematic representation of the time course of an advertising block; and

Fig. 3 shows the functional components of the transmission center.

In Fig. 1 is a schematic representation of the broadcast sequence when fading in a live broadcast in a time window of an advertising block is shown. The central control of the transmission process takes place from the transmission center of the television transmitter 16 , the functional components of which are illustrated in FIG. 3. The entire transmission process is carried out in the central control unit, the Automatic Device Controller (ADC 100 ). For this purpose, the fixed transmission sequence must be entered manually by an employee via a computer interface and thus communicated to the Libary Device Management. The central control system 24 then automatically retrieves all of the image data relevant to the transmitter from the various image data carriers during the transmission period. These image data carriers are in particular the digital video server 18 and the Digi-Beta server 26 , on which the commercials, trailers, teletext, feature films, etc. are stored. While the standard is still standard in feature films, the advertising blocks are completely stored in the digital video server 18 in compressed MPEG 2 format. In the preferred embodiments, the digital video server has 22 channels, six of which are configured as input and 16 as output channels. The total loading capacity currently amounts to 6 terabits, which corresponds to the simultaneous playback of 140 video signals.

The live signal of the live broadcast comes either via satellite 14 or terrestrial, ie via permanently installed ground lines 15 from the event location of the live broadcast 2 to the broadcast center 16 , as indicated schematically in FIG. 1. In the preferred embodiments, the terrestrial transmission link comprises fiber optic connections which use ATM technology (asynchronous transfer mode) as the transmission protocol.

At event location 2 of the live broadcast, a camera records the sequence of a live overlay. These are particularly preferably quiz programs, games shows, permanent commercials or commercials with prices and opportunities for television viewers to win. The camera signal 4 is either forwarded to the transmission center 16 via a transmission vehicle 6 or via an internal or external studio 8 . The image control takes place on site in the broadcasting vehicle 6 or in the internal or external studios 8 , which in the preferred embodiments have a monitor 10 which, during the time window of the advertising blocks, represents a black screen sequence 12 with a clock, which represents the remaining ones Indicates the send time of the time window. The live signal transmitted via satellite 14 or terrestrial 15 is now superimposed on the black image 20 of the digital video server 18 , so that the signal emanating from the transmission center 16 contains the live image 22 of the event location during the fixed time window.

In Fig. 2, the chronological sequence of an advertising block is shown schematically, two time windows with live overlays being indicated by way of example. In the preferred embodiments, an advertising block 32 comprises a plurality of advertising spots 28 and one or more time windows 30 . The entire advertising block typically comprises a few minutes of transmission time, the individual commercials being in the range between 5 and 30 seconds and the time window for live inserts having a duration of approximately 30 seconds. The signal from the live event location 34 is synchronized with the time window 30 and is played in the advertising block and thus fades out the black screen sequence with the clock display, which is stored together with the commercials on the digital video server. The temporally synchronized fade-in is controlled by the image direction of the broadcasting center of the television station 16 , which feeds the video signal from the event location of the live event 40 , ie the incoming live signal 36 , into the advertising block. The complete outgoing transmitter signal 38 , which contains both the commercials coming from the digital video server and the live signal 34 blended in the time slots 30 from the event location, is preferably available to television viewers 42 across Europe or worldwide via satellite 14 or terrestrial 15 posed.

Claims (8)

1. Procedure for importing at least one live broadcast into a hard drive on a digital video server secured advertising block of a television program, which for the scheduled live window before the Broadcast of the program firmly in the advertising block inte is free. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the live broadcast min at least one of the transmission types i) quiz programs, ii) Ga me shows, iii) permanent commercials and iv) hotline Broadcasts. 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the television signal of the Advertising blocks in a compressed digital data format mat is stored on the video server and for off radiation decompressed as a digital video signal is sent. 4. The method of claim 3, wherein for the live Recording of fixed time windows in the data pair ket of the advertising block on the video server as a constant Background signal is stored. 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the signal of the live Program synchronized in time instead of constant th background signal is imported. 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the background signal a display of the temporal progress of the Zeitfen sters includes. 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the signal of the live Broadcast from location by satellite or terrestrial  Line to the location of the digital video server via will wear. 8. A picture of a television divided into several areas screen in which at least one area of the ge divided image is broadcast a live broadcast.