KR20080055338A - Set top box of internet protocol television service system, audience rating survey system for internet protocol television service system and method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

An IP(Internet Protocol)TV set-top box and an apparatus and a method for inspecting the program rating in an IPTV are provided to use an SNMP(Simple Network Management Program) as a network management protocol used an Internet environment without the installation of a separate device. Middleware(11) detects the channel change of an IPTV and produces the corresponding information. A channel change data policy module(15) sets the collection policy of the channel change data. A channel change data collection module(13) receives the channel change information provided from the middleware according to the determined standard and stores the received information in an SNMP MIB. A channel change data filtering module(14) filters the channel change information and confirms the validity of the channel change information. A channel change data transmitting module(24) produces the confirmed channel change information as the SNMP trap information of the determined message and transmits the information to a channel data collection device installed at a broadcasting side.

Description

ITP TV set-top box, IPTV TV rating system and method {Set Top Box Of Internet Protocol Television Service System, Audience Rating Survey System For Internet Protocol Television Service System And Method Thereof}

1 is a diagram showing the overall configuration of the IPTV set-top box and the viewer rating investigation apparatus of the IPTV according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a flowchart of transmitting channel change data as an SNMP trap in an IPTV set-top box according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a flowchart of analyzing an SNMP trap and executing an audience rating investigation in an IPTV audience rating survey apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for investigating an audience rating of an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), and more particularly to an audience TV using an Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) which is a network management protocol used in an Internet environment. The present invention relates to a set-top box, an IPTV rating viewer, and a method thereof.

The SNMP specification is described in detail in Request For Comments (RFC) 1155 (SMI), RFC 1213 (MIB-II), and RFC 1157 published by the US Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) specification It is described in detail in RFC 1350 [THE TFTP PROTOCOL (REVISION 2)].

In general, the IPTV service is a service that provides a variety of information, video content, and broadcasting to the television using the high-speed Internet, which is a type of digital convergence in terms of convergence of the Internet and television.

In order to use the IPTV service, a television, a set-top box or a dedicated modem must be provided, and an Internet line must be connected to the set-top box or a dedicated modem.

In the state of watching TV, viewers can use the remote control to receive various contents and additional services provided by the Internet such as watching movies, home shopping, home banking, online games, and MP3s as interactive services using the remote control.

IPTV service is not different from general cable broadcasting or satellite broadcasting in that it provides broadcasting contents including video, but it is a big difference from general cable broadcasting and satellite broadcasting in that it adds bidirectionality.

With the advent of a multi-channel environment, viewer rating research is being conducted to find the trends of viewers' preferences and to use them to analyze competition among channels, to set programming direction, and to select target audience.

Existing viewership survey methods include a journal survey that distributes a printed booklet to viewers to create a record of their media exposure, interview surveys divided into visits and telephone interviews, and television subscribers. There is a survey using a meter that automatically attaches a device such as a people meter or an audimeter to record the viewing behavior and transmits the recorded data to the investigation center via telephone line with the agreement.

In the above survey method, the weather survey and the interview survey have the disadvantage of having to rely on human memory and the reliability of the survey, and the survey method using the meter is complicated and expensive to install. There is a problem that the absolute cooperation of the respondents is required, and there is a problem that the reliability of the statistical data is deteriorated because it is not possible to collect data for all customers who are provided with the service.

In addition, Patent Application No. 1997-0041880 discloses a technique for automatically examining the ratings in each TV station.

This means that a broadcasting channel search command is broadcasted by a TV broadcasting station by VBI (Vertical Blanking Interval) encoding, and when the TV receiving signal is decoded, the broadcasting channel search command is decoded. By sending an e-mail to a TV broadcasting station, the broadcasting station collects and analyzes the received e-mail and utilizes it as a material for an audience rating survey.

However, this method also has a problem of considerable difficulty because it relies on the manual labor of the operator in collecting and analyzing the information of the e-mail transmitted from each television to the TV station.

In addition, the TV station is accompanied by the hassle of having to encode a separate channel search command in each broadcast program data to VBI, which may cause a loss of regular broadcast data.

The present invention has been invented to solve the above-described problems, by collecting the viewer ratings and utilization data for the product desired by the customer using SNMP, a network management protocol used in the Internet environment, the state does not involve costs Its purpose is to provide the acquisition of highly reliable information.

IPTV set-top box according to a feature of the present invention for achieving the above object,

Middleware for detecting a channel change of the IPTV and generating corresponding information;

A policy module for setting a channel change data collection policy;

A collection module for receiving channel change information provided from the middleware according to a predetermined standard and storing the changed channel information as an SNMP MIB;

A filtering module for filtering valid channel change information collected according to a channel change data collection policy to check validity;

And a sending module for generating the channel change data, which has been determined to be valid, as SNMP trap information of a predetermined message and transmitting the generated channel change data to a channel data collection device installed at the broadcasting station.

In addition, the IPTV audience rating research apparatus according to the characteristics of the present invention,

A set-top box that collects viewing information, which is channel selection information of an IPTV, and generates and transmits the viewing information as SNMP trap information;

A channel data collecting device extracting only viewer rating information from the SNMP trap transmitted from the set-top box to detect validity and collecting and storing only rating information determined to be valid;

And an audience rating management system for mapping and storing the viewer rating data collected by the channel data collecting device into customer and product information, and generating statistical data using the same.

In addition, the IPTV audience rating research method according to a feature of the present invention,

Generating channel change data when a channel change is detected during IPTV viewing;

Setting the generated channel change data to an SNMP MIB and determining validity of satisfying a set policy through filtering;

Constructing validity determination channel data as SNMP trap information and transmitting the same to the channel data collecting device installed at the broadcasting station;

If the SNMP trap is received at the set-top box, extracting only channel change data to determine validity;

Storing channel change data determined to be valid as viewer rating information, and generating viewer rating statistical data using the same.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so that those skilled in the art may easily implement the present invention.

As those skilled in the art would realize, the described embodiments may be modified in various different ways, all without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention.

In the drawings, parts irrelevant to the description are omitted for simplicity of explanation, and like reference numerals designate like parts throughout the specification.

In addition, when a part is said to "include" a certain component, which means that it may further include other components, except to exclude other components unless otherwise stated.

Now, an IPTV set-top box, an IPTV rating survey apparatus, and a method thereof according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a view showing the overall configuration of the IPTV set-top box and the IPTV ratings investigation apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, the present invention provides an IPTV 1 and a set-top box 10 installed at a user side, and a channel data collection device 20 and an audience rating management system 30 installed at each broadcasting station that provides an IPTV service. ).

Set-top box 10 is installed on the user side and connected to the IPTV (1), connected to the server installed in the broadcasting station through the Internet network, and the digital broadcast signal of various channels provided by the Internet protocol (IP) from the server of the broadcasting station It receives and broadcasts the channel selected by the user through the screen of the connected IPTV 1 so that the user can watch.

The set top box 10 is the middleware 11, SNMP agent 12, channel change data collection module 13, channel change data filtering module 14, channel change data collection policy module 15 and channel change data transmission Module 16.

The middleware 11 detects whether the channel of the IPTV 1 is changed and provides the SNMP agent 12 with information about it.

The SNMP air agent 12 provides an IPTV service between the IPTV 1 and a server installed in a broadcasting station.

The channel change data collection module 13 receives the channel change information provided by the middleware 11 according to a predetermined standard and stores the changed channel information as an SNMP MIB.

The channel change data filtering module 14 checks the validity by filtering the channel change information according to the channel change data collection policy set in the channel change data collection policy module 15.

The channel change data collection policy module 15 sets a policy necessary for collecting channel change data, and is set according to an audience rating management policy set in an audience rating management system 30 installed at a broadcasting station.

The channel change data sending module 16 generates the channel change data, which is determined to be valid in the channel change data collected through the middleware 11, as trap information of a message defined by using an SNMP trap and installs it on the broadcasting station side. Is transmitted to the channel data collection device 20.

In addition, the channel data collection device 20 includes a trap data reception module 21, a channel change data separation module 22, a channel change data validity determination module 23, a channel change data sending module 24, and FTP data. The generation module 25 and the channel data collection policy module 26 are included.

The trap data reception module 21 in the channel data collection device 20 receives and receives various trap information transmitted from the set top box 10 as an SNMP trap.

The channel change data separating module 22 separates and extracts only the channel change data from the various trap information collected and provided by the channel data receiving module 21.

The channel change data validity determination module 23 determines the validity of the message format and data of the channel change data separated and extracted by the channel change data separation module 22.

The channel change data sending module 24 generates the channel change data determined to be valid as a transmission message and transmits the channel change data to the rating management system 30.

The FTP data generating module 25 generates and manages all data received by the SNMP trap from the set-top box 10 as a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) file and periodically provides the rating management system 30.

The channel data collection policy module 26 receives the rating management policy set in the rating management system 30 installed at the broadcasting station and provides it to the channel change data collection policy module 15 of the set-top box 10.

In addition, the viewer rating management system 30 is the channel change data reception module 31, the channel change data validity determination module 32, the channel change data storage module 33, the viewer rating statistics processing module 34 and the channel change data collection policy Module 35.

The channel change data receiving module 31 receives and receives channel change data transmitted from the channel data collecting device 20.

The channel change data validity determination module 32 verifies the validity by mapping the subscriber information and the product information included in the channel change data transmitted and received from the channel data collection device 20.

The channel change data storage module 33 stores the valid channel change data in a designated address area.

The viewer rating statistics processing module 34 generates viewer rating information using the collected channel change information and generates aggregate data for use as viewer rating statistics.

The channel change data collection policy module 35 has a channel change data collection policy set according to the viewership management policy.

Typically, viewer ratings are narrower ratings of the distribution of televisions that are watching the current channel (program) being investigated, based on the total number of televisions available, and percentages of specific channels (programs) based on the television being viewed. Concepts, including occupancy, and the like.

An operation of generating channel change data in the IPTV set-top box including such a configuration and transmitting the changed channel data to the channel data collecting apparatus installed at the broadcasting station will be described with reference to FIG. 2.

The server installed in each broadcasting station providing the IPTV service transmits the digital broadcast organized in the home country to the Internet network using the Internet Protocol (IP), and the set-top box 10 connected to the Internet network broadcasts various channels received. Only the channel selected by the IPTV 1 is tuned and displayed on the screen of the IPTV 1.

In this way, in the state where the viewer selects one channel to watch the IPTV 1 (S211), it is determined whether the channel change of the IPTV 1 is detected by the viewer (S212).

When the channel change of the IPTV 1 is detected, the middleware of the set-top box 10 connected to the IPTV 1 generates channel change data 11 (S213) and sends it to the SNMP agent 12 (S214).

At this time, the channel change data collection module 13 included in the SNMP agent 12 collects the channel change data received according to a predetermined standard set in the channel change data collection policy module 15 and collects the channel change data. The channel change data is set to the SNMP MIB and provided to the channel change data filtering module 14 (S215).

The channel change data filtering module 14 filters whether the collected channel change data is meaningful data as viewing information according to the channel change policy (S216), and determines the validity of having meaning as viewing rating information (S216). S217) It is determined whether valid channel data (S218).

The meaning as the viewer rating information refers to channel information that ensures a maintenance time for viewing for a predetermined time or more after a channel change.

If only valid channel data is extracted from the determination in S218 and provided to the channel change data sending module 16, the channel change data sending module 16 constructs the channel change data as SNMP trap information (S219) and is connected to the Internet network. In operation S220, the channel data collection apparatus 20 installed at the broadcasting station is transmitted.

According to the above procedure, when the channel change data for the viewership survey is collected from the set-top box 10 connected to the IPTV 1 and transmitted to the SNMP trap, the channel data collection device and the viewership management system installed on the broadcasting station side are Statistics are generated by analyzing the viewer rating according to the flowchart shown in FIG. 3.

This will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. 3 as follows.

The channel data collecting device 20 installed on the broadcasting station side determines whether SNMP trap data is received from the set-top box 10 in a standby state (S310) (S311).

When the SNMP trap data is received in S311, the trap data reception module 21 receives the received trap data, and the channel change data separation module 22 analyzes the received message to separate only the channel change data (S312).

Thereafter, the separated channel change data is provided to the channel change data validity determination module 23 to determine the validity of the message format and the channel change data (S313).

If valid data is detected in the determination of S313, the channel change data sending module 24 generates a message necessary for transmission (S314) (S315) and transmits it to the audience rating management system 30 (S316).

Accordingly, the channel change data reception module 31 in the rating management system 30 receives the channel change information (S317), and determines the validity of the message format and the data through the channel change data validity determination module 32. Map with customer and product information for the data (S318).

When the valid channel information data is confirmed (S319), the channel change data storage module 33 stores these information together with the customer and product information to build a database (S320), and through the viewer rating statistical processing module 34 for statistical purposes According to the analysis by period, product, etc. are utilized as statistical data of the viewer rating (S321).

The embodiments of the present invention described above are not implemented only through the apparatus and the method, but may be implemented through a program for realizing a function corresponding to the configuration of the embodiment of the present invention or a recording medium on which the program is recorded. Implementation may be easily implemented by those skilled in the art from the description of the above-described embodiments.

Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above, the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, and various modifications and improvements of those skilled in the art using the basic concepts of the present invention defined in the following claims are also provided. It belongs to the scope of rights.

 According to the above-described configuration, the present invention does not incur a separate cost for the viewer rating by conveniently examining the viewer rating using SNMP trap information, and obtains highly reliable information through real-time collection of the viewer rating and analysis by various methods. You can expect this possible effect.

Claims (7)

In the IPTV set-top box for receiving a broadcast signal of the server through the Internet and a broadcast server for transmitting a broadcast signal to the IPTV, Middleware for detecting a channel change of the IPTV and generating corresponding information; A policy module for setting a channel change data collection policy; A collection module for receiving channel change information provided from the middleware according to a predetermined standard and storing the changed channel information as an SNMP MIB; A filtering module for filtering valid channel change information collected according to a channel change data collection policy to check validity; And a sending module for generating the channel change data of which the validity is determined as SNMP trap information of a predetermined message and transmitting the generated channel change data to a channel data collecting device installed at a broadcasting station. The method of claim 1, The policy of collecting channel change data set in the policy module is set in synchronization with an audience management policy set in an audience management system installed at a broadcasting station. It is installed in the broadcasting station and is a viewer rating research device that collects and analyzes the ratings of IPTV, A channel data collection device for collecting viewership data transmitted from the set top box to the SNMP trap; And an audience rating management system for mapping and storing the collected rating data into customer and product information, and generating viewer rating statistics using the same. The method of claim 3, The channel data collection device, An acceptance module for receiving the reception of various trap information transmitted from the set top box to the SNMP trap; A separation module for separating and extracting only channel change data from various trap information collected by the reception module; A validity determination module for determining validity of a message format and data of channel change data separated and extracted by the separation module; A sending module which generates the channel change data of which the validity is determined as a transmission message and transmits the changed channel data to an audience management system side; And a policy module for matching the viewer rating management policy set in the rating management system with the viewer rating management policy set in the set-top box. The method of claim 3, The viewership management system, A policy module for setting a channel change data collection policy; A reception module for receiving and receiving channel change data transmitted from the channel data collection device; A validity determination module for verifying validity of subscriber information and product information included in the channel change data received by the channel data collection device; A storage module for storing the validated channel change data in a designated address area; And a statistical processing module for generating viewer rating information and statistical data using the stored channel change information. A set-top box that collects viewing information, which is channel selection information of an IPTV, and generates and transmits the viewing information as SNMP trap information; A channel data collection device for detecting validity by extracting only audience rating information from the SNMP trap transmitted from the set-top box, and collecting and storing only audience rating information determined to be valid; And an audience rating management system for mapping and storing audience rating data collected by the channel data collecting device into customer and product information, and generating statistical data using the rating information. Generating channel change data when a channel change is detected during IPTV viewing; Setting the generated channel change data to an SNMP MIB and determining validity of satisfying a set policy through filtering; Constructing validity determination channel data as SNMP trap information and transmitting the same to the channel data collecting device installed at the broadcasting station; If the SNMP trap is received at the set-top box, extracting only channel change data to determine validity; And storing channel change data determined as valid as viewer rating information, and generating viewer rating statistical data using the changed channel data.

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