MXPA99006224A - Method and system for tracking network use - Google Patents

Abstract

A method and system for tracking subscriber use of a network, such as an interactive media delivery network, which delivers programming to set top boxes coupled to a display device is disclosed. The system tracks events, including anychange in status of a set top box caused by a change in programming or channel or a subscriber's activation and interaction with a particular interactive services application. Each application forms an event record comprising the application ID, event and time stamp. Collected event records are buffered, compressed, formed into packets and transmitted to a merge processor that combines event records with content data that describes the programming content distributed throughout the network. The event records and content data are merged to form event timelines for each subscriber's set top box that show subscriber activity or programming played to a subscriber over a selected time period.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR TRACKING THE USE OF THE NETWORK This invention is a method and system for tracking the use of network applications by subscribers, particularly network applications that involve the delivery of interactive media or video programming. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Open television and cable television have dominated the visual media market for a long time. New communications technologies, however, have accelerated the demand for new types of media such as video on demand, interactive video, interactive games, telephone purchases or interactive advertising. Unlike open television, viewers of these services are usually paid "subscribers", although advertiser payments also cover much of the costs involved in providing these media services. To assess the effectiveness of their expenses, advertisers have long sought information about viewer viewing patterns. There are a number of devices and techniques to gather such information. For example, United States Patents Nos. 4,258,386 for Cheung and 4,556,030 for Nickerson et al., Describe the general concept of deploying devices in the homes of viewers to monitor the television set ("TV") of the viewer in order to accumulate data illustrating habits of viewer. TV viewing such as which channels are watched at certain times. Then the accumulated data are transmitted via telephone lines to a central point for the purpose of analysis. Cheung sends the data from particular monitoring stations in a specific and preselected "window" of time; Transmission interruptions that occur during this window result in the Cheung system data being transmitted at another time. Other systems and methods provide usage data 'in some sense more complete than simply listing channels viewed at certain times. In general, however, the information is that corresponding to a smaller subset of users. Thus, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4.816. 904 of McKenna and others; 4,912,552 of Allison, lll and others and 5,374,951 of Welsh disclose the use of "panelists" monitored on TV in order to collect data on the panelists' viewing patterns as well as certain marketing information. In general, the monitoring of panelists is used to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising in selected groups of "panelists", each of them being a home of a group comprising a "panel" usually located in a geographic area in which particular. Monitoring not only determines what commercial announcements and TV shows the panelist looks at, but can also be used to gather information about the products that the panelists buy. For example, McKenna's United States Patent discloses a remote data collection unit located in the home of a panelist, which monitors the viewer's identification data and TV functions (eg, watched channel, TV viewing time). video recorder or game time). In addition, a pencil is provided to input barcodes of purchased items. The monitored data is sent via the telephone network to a central point, which can also download questionnaires to the panelist and receive responses.

Allison and Welsh reveal similar monitoring systems and methods. Instead of simply monitoring the channel number that a panelist was watching at a particular time, Welsh reveals the monitoring of identification information transmitted in the vertical blanking interval of the television signal, which identifies pre-selected commercial announcements. After detecting and storing the identifying information that identifies the particular commercial advertisements watched by the panelists, the data is transmitted by telephone to a central point for the purposes of its analysis. Monitoring systems have also been used with certain early interactive media systems. U.S. Patent No. 5,404,393 to Remillard discloses an interactive TV system. Among other elements of the system, a controller monitors the TV channels and stamps the time / date on the selected channel so that, indirectly, the programming choices of the viewers can be monitored. The data is assembled in a "user profile" that is uploaded to an appropriate installation via the telephone network. However, while the monitoring systems of panelists such as those of Allison, McKenna and Welsh or interactive television monitoring systems like Remillard's provide somewhat more data than simple TV tuning data, they do so with groups limited. For example, when more data is collected (such as purchasing information) it is done only for groups of panelists, instead of subscribers for the entire system. In addition, systems such as McKenna's that use a bar code scanner are intrusive systems that require user action to collect the data, rather than passively and automatically. Other systems contemplate capturing only some of the data generated by the viewer's viewing activities or only certain audience information. For example, the above systems usually capture audience information that identifies the most watched television programs, rather than whether the subscriber looked at commercial advertisements presented during those programs. Perhaps the most important thing is that none of the systems described try to match "raw" information about the watched channels with programming information. These systems do not match information about TV viewing patterns with demographic information about particular users, in order to provide more "targeted" advertising. COMPENDIUM OF THE INVENTION The present invention uses a collector associated with a box on top of a subscriber apparatus ("STB"), to obtain data on any "event" -subscriber's actions or changes in programming- that is of interest. Data about virtually any event, from watched channels to volume changes and invoked interactive applications, can be captured by the collector. The event logs that comprise such data, as well as the identity of the application involved and the time of the event, are placed in intermediate storage. Periodically or upon ordering, the event logs upload from the intermediate storage to a fusion processor as through an interactive network that allows to establish duplex communications with the STB. The fusion processor, which may be a header server or a workstation-type computer that is part of or coupled to the media delivery network, receives (1) the event data and (2) content data that identify the content of the programming broadcast or delivered throughout the region in which the system is deployed. Then, for each subscriber, temporary lines can be generated that show particular events through time. More than just determining the watched channel and the time of day, the event timelines describe the programming or interactive applications selected by a subscriber or displayed thereto over a selected period of time (eg, 24 hours). The fusion processor can also filter this gathered and merged data to generate reports that go from the descriptions of the patterns of a single user's view to the very high-level viewing patterns that show the number of users who watched or participated of a particular program during a selected period of time. further, that information can be combined with billing and demographic information to provide detailed information about a particular subscriber or group of subscribers that looks and relates to buying patterns. The present invention thus involves a method for obtaining detailed information on all the applications invoked by a subscriber, as well as information on the type of programming shown. The first step is to identify the data that describe the events of interest that take place. These events include: the watched channel, a switching to another channel, a passive change of the programming due to a commercial cut or change to a new program, use of a video recorder or other accessory device or, the invocation of an interactive application and the subscriber commands given to the system during the application. The event data also includes the start and stop times, the identification of the subscriber's STB or the specific data that must be registered with respect to any interactive application or another particular one. Event logs are formed from this data collected and placed in intermediate storage before uploading them through the interactive network or through the delivery of other means to a data analysis system of the header, server or server system. a third. Before uploading them, the captured data can be compressed thus forming packets for the purposes of transmission. The use of the system or method of the present invention allows service providers to obtain audience information and detailed information on subscriber viewing patterns and the use of interactive applications by subscribers. So that the present invention can track the amount of subscribers who watch or watch particular programs, including advertising. You can also track the use of particular interactive applications, such as video on demand. The invention automatically matches the data describing the content of the programming with the event data describing a channel or an application activated or controlled by the subscriber. This allows the invention to comprehensively track "channel navigation" by the user. In addition, the invention can compare demographic or billing information of subscribers with information on viewing patterns in order to adapt commercial advertisements to those subscribers.; determine if the subscribers with the selected demographic background looked at a commercial advertisement of interest; or, determine the demographics of the subscribers who watched the selected commercial ads. The art experts will recognize that the present invention can be used with numerous types of network media delivery systems. For example, the method or system of the present invention can be deployed in an interactive media delivery system or modified for use with a conventional cable television network, a wireless cable television network or a satellite television network for the home. It is consequently an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for collecting information on subscriber viewing patterns and on the use of a media delivery system. It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method for determining which network applications, in particular interactive applications, are invoked by particular subscribers. It is a further object of the invention to provide a system and method for communicating the collected information to a fusion processor. It is a further object of the invention to provide the fusion processor with information on the content of the programming distributed by the media delivery system. It is even another object of the invention to provide a system and method for merging the information collected with the programming information in order to obtain comprehensive information about the displayed programming or the network applications invoked by the subscribers.

Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from reading the remainder of this document. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the elements of an embodiment of the system of the present invention. Figure 2 shows a block diagram of an STB box, as used with the embodiment of the present invention shown in Figure 1 and provided with a disturbance current processor. Figure 3 shows a schematic diagram illustrating the upload cycle corresponding to the collected event data. Figures 4A and 4B show the upload of the event data collected from a selected STB Box, through the network and to the activation server shown in Figures 1 and 5. Figure 5 shows an overview of a server of activation, its functions and its interconnections with various data sources. Figure 6A shows the elements of the system required to merge and analyze the event and content data collected by the present invention. Figure 6B shows the priority assignment for the content data, necessary for the purpose of completing the merging and analysis process. Figure 7 shows the results of a fusion and analysis process of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Overview of the system Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the components of the system 20. It is a system of collection and analysis of demographic and programming audiences that can be deployed for use in a delivery system of interactive media such as the interactive video services network deployed by BellSouth Interactive Media Services. The interactive system is described in copending application S / N 08 / 428,718, assigned to the owner of the present invention and whose document is therefore incorporated in its entirety by way of reference. However, art experts will recognize that the present invention can be used with any of a variety of interactive media delivery systems, standard or wireless cable television systems, satellite television systems or other media delivery systems that allow duplex communication (possibly with a return path through a separate network (for example, telephone)) with a box ("STB") 30 coupled to a subscriber display device, such as a television set or the like. In any event, Figure 1 shows various elements and subsystems of the system 20, which communicate with each other to transmit the information collected, data error detection schemes and data recognition. In short, the STB 30 communicates through a distribution network 52 with a video server 60, such as a video transfer machine ("VTE"), which can be purchased from Hewlett Packard ("HP") , with a video / object storage database 54.

The video server 60 is coupled to a video control server 56 such as an Intermedia Media Server, available from Sybase and deployed on a platform such as an HP 9000, with a database 58. Control of the video server 56 controls the video server 60 and also chronologically records information on its use. An activation server 70 receives the collected records of the events of interest. These "event registers" pass through the control of video server 56, which is also coupled to a system of Information and Marketing System (Marketing and Information System - "MKIS") 100 which in turn is coupled to a server activation 60, which receives (1) the event records and (2) the content data from various sources 120, 140 and 160 identified in Figure 1 and which describe the content of programming available through the interactive network to all the subscribers. The MKIS 100 can be coupled to a third search and analysis system 110 that can provide customer support operations. The STB 30 provides a platform through which (1) the content is converted to a selected video format (eg, NTSC or PAL) and presented to the subscriber or, (2), in the case of interactive systems, messages (including video data) are exchanged over a network 52 with an activation server 70. The STB 30 could also include platforms capable of: (1) receiving messages from a user's input device, such as a remote control unit laptop; (2) translate the video signals from a native network format into a format that can be used by the television device or monitor; (3) insert alphanumeric or graphic information in the video stream in order to "overlap" that information in the video image; (4) provide graphic or audio feedback to a user; or, (5) possibly the most basic function, simply directing a traditional broadcast signal to a television viewing device connected to the STB 30. The terms analogous to STB include: Terminal of the upper part of the apparatus ("STT"), Cable converter and Home communications terminal ("HCT") and any of these devices can be coupled or be part of a monitor device to show the programming to the subscribers. Typically, the STB 30 can be a Richmond or 8600X that can be purchased from Scientific Atlanta, a CFT 2200 that can be purchased from General Instruments, a Thomson DSS, or any other device equipped with (1) a microprocessor; (2) memory to operate instructions and storage; and (3) a control interface for accepting the subscriber commands from a remote control device or control panel. In the case of the particular embodiment of the system 20 shown in the Figures, the collected event data that is packaged for the purpose of transporting it through the system 20 is referred to as "disturbance current" information data. Figure 2 shows a disturbance current processor 34 residing in the memory, such as a DRAM or the like, of an STB 30 and having a perturbation current core 36, buffers 42 or 44, a manipulator of disturbance current rise 40, a disturbance current controller 38 and an API (application programming interface) of disturbance current events 41. In short, the perturbation current core 36 buffer events passed to it by various applications of the network through the disturbance current event API 41. The disturbance current controller 38 accepts the control messages from the activation server 70 and stores its workload appropriately. Characteristic messages can be sent via the data link via the Extended Super Frame ("ESF") pass data link and control the upload of disturbance current data. The disturbance current rise manipulator 40 accepts the control messages by the system 20, which control the upload of the data collected from disturbance current by the reverse path through the network 52. In addition, the disturbance current rise manipulator 40 stores the workload of these messages in the appropriate and available memory and accepts the messages sent to it to recognize the reception of the disturbance current data uploaded. Referring again to Figure 1, the video server 60 provides video / object storage information 54 to the particular interactive system by which the system 20 is deployed. The disturbance current data collected in the STB 30 can be uploaded to the activation server 70 in various forms. For example, Figure 1 shows that the distribution network 52 could be coupled directly to the activation server 70, allowing the disturbance current data packets sent from the STBs 30 to be redirected directly to the activation server 70 and for it to return then the data recognitions via the network 52. A network management controller 50 controls the flow of the information through the network 52. Alternatively, Figure 1 and, in greater detail, Figure 4B, show that the Disturbance current data packets can be sent to the distribution network 52 and to the video server 60. The video server 60 passes both the data uploads of the perturbation current of several STB 30 and the data acknowledgments returned to the STB 30. A communications router contained in the video server 60 redirects the traffic to a destination appropriate. Similarly, the video server control 56 acts as a step device corresponding to the disturbance current data of the STB 30 which is directed to the activation server 70 and as a step device corresponding to the data recognitions of the activation server 70 to the STBs 30. In addition, the video server control 56 may provide log information identifying the interactive applications invoked by the particular STBs 30. The log information is provided to the activation server 70 so that the video server control 56 also acts as another source of data about the content available on the network, such as the metadata source EPG 120, the metadata source of open television advertising 140 or the advertising traffic control metadata source 160. The activation server 70 collects all of that data from the disturbance stream and the content data, analyzes them and then redirects them to the MKIS database 100 or a third analysis and database machine 110, as described in greater detail in the text associated with Figures 5-7. Event data bulletins The disturbance current processor 34 collects the information in order to create a "bulletin" or chronological record of all events or selected events of interest. An event is an action or a change of state of the STB 30 that is considered important to generate a knowledge base about the subscribers or their viewing patterns. For example, an event can include key presses to change channels or volume, mute, enter the corresponding browser to the interactive system, deactivate or activate the STB 30, forward, pause or rewind a video obtained via the video application on demand . The events include the applications invoked by the subscriber, such as interactive gaming applications, an electronic program guide application, video on demand or next to video on demand, a telephone purchasing application or an interactive application of a company in particular, such as a weather-on-demand application from The Weather Channel, travel on-demand from World Span or interactive educational Light Span. The events include the use and control of commands by the subscriber of peripheral devices coupled to the STB 30 or a subscriber display device, such as a video recorder or videodisc player. Each application residing in the STB 30 interfaces with the disturbance current processor 34 to send the selected data in order to maintain a desired bulletin. If we assume that the system 20 is used with an interactive system, many different applications can be deployed by that system, which can be triggered by the subscriber. Some fairly characteristic applications that could be invoked include the following: • a cable television application that handles the subscriber's remote controls (such as channel or volume changes); • an electronic program guide application such as interactive TV Data services, Prevue (Preview) or Star Sight (View of stars); • an interactive game; • a video on demand application or next to video on demand; • company-specific applications, which could be offered by the content provider, such as The Weather Channel, MTV, Showtime, etc .; or • a browser application to help the user choose options. To each of those applications, as well as to certain internal applications that the system 20 may wish to monitor, they will be assigned an exclusive application identifier. The disturbance current processor 34 interfaces with the various applications resident in the operating system 32 of the STB 30 and the third-party applications 33. Note that in the case of systems using STB types 30 different from the embodiment described in FIGS. Figures, those STB 30 do not need to have an operating system. Instead, you can record all instructions directly in the memories of those particular STBs. The applications 33 can be added either by directly downloading the entirely new software to the memory or by downloading new tables, as described below. When the application 33 reaches a point where an "event" of interest has been generated, it stores the record of the event in the memory. The application 33 then throws the event record to the core of the disturbance stream 36, including information such as: (1) the identification code of the application 33 (eg, "Cable TV application" or an interactive application) in particular); (2) an account of the amount of information (number of bytes) that should be integrated into the newsletter; (3) a "time stamp" that defines an exclusive time point, for example, defining the date and time of the day, exact with respect to time, minutes and seconds; (4) an identification code corresponding to the event; or, (5) where the event data was stored. The disturbance current core 36 uses the information provided by the applications 33 to collect the event data, format it and place it in a buffer 42 or 44. Table Y shows the type of information that the processor usually sends. disturbance current 34 to the buffers 42 or 44.

Global Table II defines the events of interest that each application can identify, collect and store in the "Application specific data" field and notify the disturbance current core 36. These events could be as simple as a change of broadcast channel , by pressing the remote key "Turn on channel". Each application can access all of these types of events and use them. Although each application may not use all possible types of events, the number of available events corresponding to the collection allows the system 20 to extract any pertinent information from use for the purposes of its analysis. In addition, the use of the global table II increases the efficiency of the system 20 because the types of events can be modified, added or eliminated. TABLE II: DEFINITIONS OF EVENTS TABLE II: DEFINITIONS OF EVENTS Event Code Event Code Related content events Application / related switching status 0x0000 Content change 0x0028 Turn on passive CA Pressing of direct keys 0x0001 Pressed TV < > ITV Note that Table II defines relative volume changes (eg, "volume change below 50%", "volume change below 25%", etc.). Although the applications could capture the pulses of real keys that led to these relative volume changes, this level of detailed information is of little use to system operators. In addition, capturing all those details leads to having more records and greater demands on the system. transmit to network 52 when that data is uploaded. The applications could also be configured to "filter out" other unwanted details about the activities of the subscribers. For example, when subscribers "surf" through the channels, quickly passing through a number of channels in a short period of time, the application could be configured to not record the channel changes, unless the subscriber paused longer than a certain amount of time selected (for example, between 25 and 30 seconds). Again this removes information of little use and decreases the traffic in the network. Table III defines a small portion of a global sample channel identification table, which proposes the codes intended to identify national and local stations. This table allows any application to produce an event bulletin that appears while subscribers watch the programs of open or cable television to identify the network that transmits the content of the programming, using a subset of the global table II. In this way, the channel guidelines can be changed and the identifier corresponding to an open or cable television network can be maintained without modification. The use of this mapping or correlation scheme eliminates the need to correlate an everchanging channel number with a network.

Table IV below shows some possible identification codes corresponding to particular applications. Note that each application could be programmed to insert its application ID code into the event record without accessing Table IV. But as each application has access to Table IV during the process of preparing bulletins, the capacity of the system 20 to modify or easily add the application ID codes is expanded, because such codes could be distributed throughout the system. downloading an updated table IV. By providing the download of new tables, the identification fingerprints of the application and the complexity of the system increase, 20 so that the tables can also be part of the application's programming.

Each particular application can simply refer to global application, event identification and channel tables (which can be periodically updated and then downloaded to STB 30) in order to generate an event log. Examples of application-specific event records that can be created in this way are shown in Tables V through VIII below and explained in the associated text. A cable TV application 33 can tune analog or digital broadcast services. When you enter a command to change channels, the cable TV application 33 is invoked. The cable TV application 33 begins to generate an event log by inserting an application ID and a time stamp into the register. Then, the application 33 determines the "event ID" by cross-referencing the command with the global table II of event ID corresponding to the correct code. Then, application 33 generates a bulletin with the "Channel ID". Although the channel ID could simply be the channel number, that information means little. The fact that channel 5 is watched more than channel 7 has little or no meaning unless the networks and, ultimately, the content delivered by them are associated with particular channels. Accordingly, the channel ID may be a field, such as a 16-bit field, which uniquely identifies the broadcast network presented on that particular channel. The channel ID can be determined by programming the cable TV application 33 to compare the tuned channel number with the above-mentioned global identification card of the transmitting channels, in order to determine the correct channel identification code. The correlation of the channel number with the channel identification code found in Table III ensures that the information is accurate, even though the channels may differ in the different systems of cable TV headends within a particular region or even when Alignment changes of the individual channel can be made over a period of time. The correlation between the channel number and the channel identification code could also be established in the activation server 70, after it receives all the event records, provided that the correlation accounts for the different guidelines of the channel. the regional channels.

Table VI below shows a browser application that can be provided in order to provide subscribers with an interactive menu that assists them in the selection of many programs and applications available in an interactive network. The "event ID" refers to the identification codes corresponding to the commands relating to the browser application, which can be located by reference to the table II of the global event ID mentioned above. Table VI also shows some of the features of the browser that the user could use and that would be useful to track. The right column of title "Size / Data" shows the base station first, next to "Application Status ID" which assigns 8 bits to the record and, secondly, in the various rows that follow, the particular code that is incorporated into the bulletin in order to indicate that a subscriber accessed the screen identified (for example, Flight through, Main menu, etc). Such information allows the operators of the system 20 to determine which screens users are watching with greater or less frequency, in order to replace the less accepted screens with the most useful ones or to charge more for advertising placed on widely used screens.

Table VII shows the preparation of bulletins with the information collected corresponding to a video on demand application 33 that can be launched in an interactive service from the previous browser application or its equivalent. Some information collected here may include the number of breaks, fast forward and rewind. In addition, the service provider may wish to determine if viewers are recording a video to charge them the recording fee. You could collect similar information for a service close to video on demand, which generally supports only pause, advance or rewind increase.

Table VIII below shows the event log corresponding to the application of Electronic Program Guide (EGP) 33. The EGP application 33 records the application ID, the time stamp and the event ID records as they do. preceding applications described in Tables V-VIII. It also has a status ID field of the application 33 that identifies which display screens the subscribers accessed, as shown below.

In general, similar information about other applications 33, such as telephone purchases, interactive games and any other new application deployed by an interactive system or other media delivery system, can be traced in a similar manner. In addition, the bulletin-making process can be used to track errors within the system 20, the core of the disturbance stream 36 making such errors with the same method already described. Over time, the needs for preparing bulletins for the system 20 or the system itself 20 may evolve. Applications can be changed or deployed new. New events may be of interest to the system operator 20. In order to provide flexibility to the system 20 operators can download to the STBs 30 new or replacement applications that include the necessary processes to prepare bulletins of all the events of interest. Newsletter Sample Suppose Mr. Smith turns on his interactive television at 7:30 p.m. to watch a half-hour news program on channel 5, which corresponds to CNN for that region. At 8:00 pm access to the browser application to order a video through the video application on demand. Then, the video-on-demand application, which automatically begins to project a video at 8: 04, stops the video at 8:50 and begins to project it again at 8:55 until it ends at 9:45, moment in which he turns off interactive TV. Mr. Smith's activities generate the following event records that are shown in Table IX below (as convenient, multiple events that occur in a single application are grouped even when separate records are created in the operation): Table IX: Sample of event records Release of Event Record Upload Variable size event records are collected and stored in one of the two buffers of the disturbance current 42 or 44. The capacity of each of the buffers is statically provided or the system 20 steers downwardly to the particular STB 30s, an intermediate storage 42 or 44 of appropriate size. An intermediate storage 42 or 44 may be a designated, contiguous and free area of the memory of the STBs 30 reserved for placing the event records only in continuous storage. Although advanced database techniques such as link lists or registry indicators can be used, they would increase the impression and complexity of the application. Because buffer sizes of approximately 15 kB would likely accommodate the needs of the bulletins of most applications, advanced database techniques are used only for larger buffers. Storages of up to 15 kB should result in at least 4 to 8 hours of "navigation" through the peaking channels between the ramps (channel navigation characteristically generates most event logs). In any event, the empirical analysis of the use of the network should determine the optimal buffer size. The event logs are directed to one of the two buffers 42 or 44, although one or more intermediate buffers can be used with the system 20. Conceivably, the system 20 could also be modified to upload event logs in real time; however, this seriously increases the possibility of instantaneous overloads in network traffic. Therefore, the system 20 preferably uses buffers 42 or 44 to buffer the collected event records until they are uploaded. The event registers of a particular STB 30 may be uploaded in a format that assists in the transmission by the distribution network 52 to the activation server 70. A header record may indicate when the buffer was first opened 42 or 44, the number of bytes in the buffer 42 or 44, the sending STB 30 per address, the core version of the disturbance stream 36 that generated the register, and the type of data compression used in the following information (if there would be). The first header record can be fixed length and uncompressed. You can compress the information according to the "Compression Type" to save on the transmission of the bandwidth. Table X below shows this general header format: When (1) an intermediate storage 42 or 44 is filled, (2) the registration rise time ends or (3) upon command from the activation server 70, the disturbance current processor 34 initiates the upload process . During said process the upstream buffer 42 is closed and subsequent event records are routed and stored in the second buffer 44. When the upload of the downstream buffer 42 is completed, the records are still placed in buffer 44 until the next rise time, after which the buffer 44 is closed and the registers go to the intermediate storage 42. This cycle continues repeating. Figure 3 shows a rise cycle diagram illustrating a method for uniformly distributing the increasing traffic in network 52 produced by the rise of event records. The rise cycle of the disturbance current consists of several parameters that define a start time and a cycle through which the data rise occurs. The "first appearance" parameter defines the start time in time from which the cycle begins. The "cycle time" parameter defines the amount of time that passes between the periods of the upload cycle. When a cycle is completed, the "rise duration" time begins, and the disturbance current processor 34 of each STB 30 randomizes an exact rise time within the duration of the rise. This upload synchronization distributes the network load evenly for the total duration of the upload. An example of the use of these parameters would be to define the daily time period with respect to the STBs 30 within the system 20 for uploading data. Characteristically, the system operator 20 may need the data available each morning for analysis. The maximum use of prime-time hours in open television or interactive services, characteristically, is from 7 p.m. until 12 pm, during which time no uploads should occur in order to minimize the load on the network 52. Beginning at 12 pm, the rise of the event logs from buffer 42 or 44 would begin. effects of having all the rises of the STB 30 before 8 a.m., the STB 30 can be divided into raise groups, that is, 32; each group goes up for a selected period (e.j., 15 minutes). To achieve this rise cycle, the following parameters are defined in the cycle of Figure 3 in Table XI: A total of four upload cycles are defined per group of the STBs 30, which allows the weekly uploads or any combination of cycles to operate at peak load times of the network 52. The STBs 30 can be instructed in respect of their role in the upload by sending from the activation server 70 the appropriate commands that are handled by the upstream controller of the disturbance stream 38. For example, the following commands can be addressed and sent from the activation server 70 to a single STB 30 or a group of them.

Depending on the configuration of the system, the commands instruct the STB 30 a; 1) define the cyclical rise for several groups or even all STB 30; 2) requires the STB 30 to rise according to the command / scan control (addressable only); 3) suppress the upload when buffer 42 or 44 is full; or 4) turn on / off the collection of records by STB 30 individuals or groups thereof. Formatting, Uploading and Capturing the Event Log After the upload process has triggered, each STB 30 characteristically initiates the upload to first close the buffer 42 or 44 to be uploaded and then compresses the contents of the buffer 42 or 44. A number of different compression techniques can be used, however, approximately 50% compression can be obtained with LZW compression facilities. Said compression essentially reduces the load on the network 52 caused by numerous STBs 30 that upload event logs. The compressed data is divided into transmission "transactions" or "packets" and the packet headers are addressed to indicate the identification of the packet, the IP destination address, etc. The actual connection of the network can be initiated through the operating system for the particular STB 30. Those skilled in the art will recognize that the type and manner of invoking and implementing the network connection varies depending on the type of network media delivery by which the system 20 is deployed. For example, the SSTB 30 can be configured to insert UDP / IP headers and crawlers taken from RFC 791 or RFC 768 specifications published by ISO. Each data packet can have the UPD / IP protocol formed around a Level 1 pass-through head as shown in Table XIII below: In the embodiment shown in the Figures, the perturbation current processor 34 identifies a particular VSP - Video Service Provider, which is an entity that is connected to the network 52 for distributing services - as indicated by the VSP 66 illustrated in FIG. Figure 4B, as destination of these data packets. All data to be uploaded appears as "payload" to the STB 30, the signaling network 52, the network management controller 50, and the event capture process 71 in the activation server 70. After inserting an appropriate head and tracker into the STB 30, the data upload packet can have the format shown in Table XIV: | Table XIV: Perturbation Current Upload Data Package By providing two buffers 42, 44, the collection of the event record continues during the upload can be obtained. Assuming the rise of the buffer 42 is effected, if the second buffer 44 is filled during the upload process, an excess buffer condition occurs. If this happens, the trace log of the buffer during the upload from the STBs 30 may denote said erroneous condition. The structure of the buffer record of the buffer can have the form illustrated in Table XV below, and include a time stamp, the identification of the assigned application, and the length and rise code.

These upload status codes identify the step of the upload process when an overcapacity of the buffer 42 or 44 occurs. Therefore, some possible upload codes could include; unused upload, upload in progress, upload completed but no acknowledgment of receipt, upload completed but acknowledgment of partial reception only or, upload was not attempted. This will allow the activation server 70 to be aware that the event registers of the STB 30 are missing at the time of initiation. Also, an excess buffer record informs the activation server 70 that the buffer sizes 42 or 44 have not been properly adjusted. The buffer sizes 42 or 44 can be adjusted again and supplied to the system 20 as an update. , or they can be supplied to a particular STB 30 if they are sent by means of an appropriate command. Note that the description of the package previously made corresponds to an embodiment of the system 20. However, in general, to upload the collected event records, the STB 30 can initiate any "upstream" data transmission process used by television by interactive cable or any other system of media delivery with which the system is used 20. This process will effect the upload of the event records in the appropriate system format. In any event, for the system 20, the disturbance current data packets are uploaded to the activation server 70 on an ALOHA-slotted data transmitter (a standard contention based contention protocol) of the STB 30. The acknowledgments data from the activation server 70 are sent; each one is directed to a particular STB 30. The frequency and period of data acknowledgments are determined by considering network error levels, network packet error levels and the causes of this type of transmission errors. Figures 4 A and 4B show in greater detail the data flow of the disturbance current by the system 20. Briefly, Figure 4 A shows that the packets of the disturbance current of the event registers are transmitted from each STB 30. to the controller of the administration of the network 50, which acts as a provider of the addressed video service. From the controller of the 50 network administration, which controls the traffic over the network 52, the packets are sent via the network 52, the video server 60 and the control of the video server 56 to the activation server 70, which is stored in MKIS 100 and to the analysis machine 110 Therefore, the event logs collected and buffered in the STBs 30 are transmitted to the activation server 70 for collection and analysis. Figure 4B shows this process in greater detail and also describes an event log capture process 71 in the activation server 70. As it is observed, once the intermediate storage 42 or 44 or the processor of the perturbation current 34 decides to upload the data for other reasons (lack of time, low system utilization, commanded upload, etc.), the storage 42 or 44 is formatted, compressed and then uploaded by the system 20 to the activation server 70 The upstream data packets can be moved by the network management controller 50 through the distribution network 52 to the video server 60 by a tunneling process called IP ("Internet Protocol"), which essentially it is an automatic IP addressing based on the payload packet information. The same process can be used to route packets through the network 52 directly to the activation server 70 without going through the video server 60. Figure 4B shows that in the video server 60, a step process L1 63 uses a table VSP Addressing System 67 to associate the IP destination addresses with the corresponding tags inserted in the received data packets. This process redirects the data packets to the application server 66 of the step process L1 63 by associating the tags with the detailed destination appropriately - here, the application server 66. The step process L1 63 in the application server 66 performs a similar function with the data packets, by routing them based on a payload identifier (transaction code or other) to an open server process for capturing event logs ("ECAP") on the activation server 70. When the ECAP process 71 receives a data packet of the disturbance current, it accepts the data packet and correlates the source address of the data packet with an upload session that is in progress with a particular STB 30. If at that time there is no upload with said STB 30, then it is presumed that it has already started. The ECAP process processes the upload of the data in accordance with the particular protocol necessary for the system 20. Upon receipt of all data packets of the disturbance current associated with the upload from a particular STB 30, the ECAP 71 sequence process the packets in proper order (the particular packets may have arrived out of their original transmission sequence due to the transmission delays in the network 52), decompress the packets, eliminate the transport overload (eg, trackers, spindles, etc.). ) and stores them in a flat file for further analysis. At the end of the selected period, such as 24 hours, the file is closed and a new one is opened, which allows a subsequent merging and analysis for the batch control process of the separate files that cover separate periods of time. Immediately after the initiation and during the ECAP 71 process, a chronological record of operations is opened to record the information regarding the initiation and completion of each upload session and if there were errors. As shown in Figure 5, the activation server 70 formulates and sends a data recognition to each STB 30 connected to the upload process. One way of doing this is to send the acknowledgments for downstream stream-level step one transactions addressable by the network 52 to the STB 30. Such data acknowledgments provide redundant error corrections because if the reception thereof is omitted the STB 30 will be warned of a possible error in the transmission. Fusion and Analysis Figures 6 A and 6B show a view of the merging and analysis process and Figure 7 shows the results of the sample as a consequence of said process. Briefly, the purpose of the merging and analysis process is to merge each event record of the STB 30 with several "metadata". "Metadata" refers to (1) programming of virtually any class shown in the system 20 including the time and network of open or cable television that provides such programming or (2) interactive applications invoked by the subscribers. For example, metadata includes the following data source: open television programming data EPG 82, open television advertising data 84, local advertising data or service session advertising data 86 and service session programming data 88 (Service session advertising refers to the advertising inserted by the video server 60 during the particular interactive sessions with the subscriber which are sessions of programming services). Collectively, all the data enters a merge and analysis machine 90 which creates a time line of events 92 for each STB 30. The merge and analysis machine 90 can be deployed on the activation server 70 or in the MKIS 100 system. such that if the fusion and analysis machine 90 is deployed in the activation server 70, the collected event records are merged and analyzed. The resulting event time lines 92 can be sent to the MKIS 100 system for further analysis. The timeline 92 provides a snapshot of the activity in a particular STB 30 for a selected period of time (eg, 24 hours) or for a selected event - for example, a time line 92 would be created for each STB 30 tuned to a particular show or shows (eg, a fight for which you pay to see it) that happens in a selected period of time. The timeline 92 originates when merging the event records with the metadata regarding the programming available on the network during a selected time period. To merge the data, appropriate priority must be given to data that may otherwise be conflicting. For example, the advertising data of the open television 84 may indicate that a certain national notice was projected in Time A. On the other hand, if the system 20 is an interactive system and the interactive server provided a directed notice ("notice ") also in Time A, as indicated in the advertising data of service sessions 86, that directed notice was inserted above the national notice in Time A. Therefore, when assigning advertising data of the service sessions 86 a higher priority than the advertising data of the national broadcast television 84, the fusion and analysis machine 90 is able to create a precise timeline 92 regarding the programming delivered to a specific STB 30. Similarly, even traditional cable or wireless cable network requires priority assignments. Characteristically, local cable operators are allowed to enter local notices above certain national notices (assuming that they can sell such local advertising time). Figure 6B illustrates said priority assignments. Figure 6B also shows several data sources, such as the EPG metadata, the Local and National Insertion metadata and the metadata of the Interactive Sessions. The EPG metadata is usually very wide - for example, showing a football game on channel 1 from 1: 00 until 4:00 p.m. Therefore, EPG metadata is assigned a lower priority than the metadata of national notices because a particular national notice will be overlapped in a particular block of time broadly defined by the EPG. In turn, the metadata of local insertion notices exceeds the expectations of the metadata of the national notices due to • that the metadata of the national notices do not respond for situations where a local or affiliated network introduces a local warning over the national warning established for a particular time period. Finally, the metadata of the interactive sessions, which reflect the selections by the subscribers, have the highest priority since they show that the subscriber stopped watching a particular channel and invoked an interactive session instead. When applying these priority rules, a time line 94 is produced for each subscriber. The additional filtering criterion 94 is applied by means of the fusion and analysis machine 90 in order to generate a more refined timeline 94, as represented in Figure 6 A. For exampleEvent logs can include highly granular and specific information such as the number of volume increases or channel changes made by a particular subscriber. A group of filtering criteria 94 can ensure that the timeline 92 includes only the channels that were viewed by more than one time period threshold (e.j., 15 seconds). This eliminates any too rapid change of channel made by the subscribers, thereby simplifying the time line of events 92 because the records of events that do not meet the criteria 94 are filtered out of the time line of events 92. Fusion and Analysis Machine 90 can also apply other criteria to the filtered timeline 94 (or to the original timeline 92), as shown in Figure 6. Specifically, advertisers apply criterion 96 of "see" and "observe " This criterion 96 identifies those programs and notices that are "seen" by subscribers for less than a certain time threshold. The programming seen by the subscribers for more time than said threshold, would be identified as "observed" programming. For example, for a 30-second warning, the threshold can be 15 seconds. If a subscriber was tuned to a channel that displays that warning for less than 15 seconds, it would be considered as simply "seeing" that notice; on the other hand, if the subscriber is tuning a channel that had said notice for 25 seconds of the length of it, it would be considered as "observing" it. This criterion 96 allows system operators 20 to charge more for the "observed" notices than for those simply "seen". A similar criterion can be applied regarding programming in order to measure audience measurements more accurately. Therefore, for a 30-minute program, if the user was tuned to that program for less than 10 minutes, the criterion of seeing and observing 96 can decide what the program was only "seen". In any event, when applying the criterion of seeing and observing 96, the fusion and analysis machine 90 creates lists of "seen" and "observed" that are useful for the operator of the system 20 and for the advertisers who contract with the operator of the system. system 20. Note also that other criteria may be used in addition to how long a particular channel was tuned in the seen and observed criterion 96. For example, another criterion may be the volume level. If a viewer was tuned to a channel during the full thirty seconds of a warning, but pushed the "mute" button or changed the volume below a certain threshold with respect to that warning, the criterion of seeing and observing 96 can be classified to said notice as a "seen" notice. In general, merging and analysis should be performed on differentiated segments of data, such as 24-hour segments, as soon as possible in order to minimize the occurrence of unresolved events. In other words, separate events are simply pieces of a total figure. If only several hours of perturbation current event data are analyzed, things such as "observed" versus "view" programming can not be determined. Figure 7 shows a sample of disturbance current data or events registers 80, Pre-premiere EPG data 82 or a similar advertising data service of the open television 84 which creates a disturbance current time line 92, which it shows both the channels selected by the subscriber and the content displayed on those channels while the subscriber watched them. A timeline 94 for each STB 30 is manufactured and uploaded by means of the activation server 70 to the MKIS database 100 or to the third-party analysis and database machine 110; any of them stores demographic data and can be used to make queries regarding time lines of events 94 and said demographic data. By combining the timelines 94 with the demographic information, a more granular and detailed information is obtained regarding the subscribers and their habits as spectators. For example, consider the following examples: • Example 1: Widget Co., has ten different notices that it has been presenting in the system 20. Widget Co., wants to know if the subscribers are "seeing" or "observing" certain notices.

Due to the detailed information captured by system 20 of the present invention, a query can be made to determine (a) which subscribers "observed" particular notices of 30 seconds for more than 15 seconds versus (b) which subscribers simply "saw" "the warning, for less than 15 seconds. • Example 2: When the timelines 94 (or the see and observe lists 98) are loaded in the MKIS 100 or in the analysis machine 110, the same query can be carried out for a given demographic group. For example, Widget Co., wants to know which particular notices were "observed" versus "seen" by its primary customer base, the generation of the 1950s, whose ages range between 40 and 50 years and with incomes above of $ 50. US $ 000 per year. Obviously, the system 20 can also be modified to direct notices to particular demographic households, based on the feedback from the analyzed and merged data. Then, the data records that appear after the targeted announcements went live on the system , can be controlled to determine whether the targeted market demographic, observed or saw the notice. The foregoing is provided to explain and disclose the preferred embodiments of the present invention; and modifications may be made that are within the scope of the following claims. For example, the architecture and programming of the system can be modified. Or, a variety of servers of different manufacture can be configured, boxes on top of a subscriber's apparatus or databases can be configured for the purpose of implementing the system. The particular identification codes and the assigned sizes shown in the tables and described herein may also be extensively modified. Other modifications and adaptations to the described embodiments will become apparent to those skilled in the art and can be realized without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention and the following claims.

Claims (23)

1. Claims 1. A method for collecting information on subscriber habits and viewership to a media delivery network to deliver programming to numerous top appliance boxes, each capable of supporting different applications invoked and controlled by the subscriber's commands, characterized in that it comprises the steps of: a. program each application to identify the selected subscriber commands of interest; b. determining an application identifier corresponding to a particular application, to which a selected command is directed; and c. create an event log that includes: the identifier of the application; an identification code corresponding to the selected command; and a time stamp.
2. 2. The method of clause 1, characterized in that it also comprises the step of accessing a table in order to determine the code and identification corresponding to the selected command.
3. 3. The method of clause 2, characterized in that it also comprises the step of accessing a table in order to determine the identifier of the application.
4. 4. The method of the clause, characterized in that it also comprises the steps of repeating steps a-c to collect multiple event records and buffer multiple event records.
5. 5. The method of clause 4, characterized in that it also comprises the step of addressing multiple event registers to a fusion processor.
6. 6. The method of clause 5, characterized in that it further comprises the step of coupling to the fusion processor a data source selected from a group consisting of: information on emission identification, information on the use of the interactive application, information on national advertising and information on local advertising.
7. 7. The method of clause 1, characterized in that the commands are selected from a group consisting of: channel change commands, volume change commands, VCR commands, application invoke commands and application control commands.
8. 8. A system for collecting and processing information about subscriber selection and the use of distributed programming by a media delivery network, characterized in that it comprises: a fusion processor coupled via devices for the purpose of communicating to multiple mailboxes the upper part of an apparatus, each comprising a processor for (1) collecting multiple event records describing commands selected by a single-layer subscriber from the top of a particular apparatus and (2) transmitting the records of events to a fusion processor; where the merge processor forms a timeline of events describing the selection of a subscriber of the distributed schedule over a discrete period of time, merging the event registers with the schedule data describing the schedule available via the delivery system. media.
9. 9. The system of clause 8, characterized in that the programming data comprise data collected from, at least, two sources selected from a group consisting of: a broadcast programming source, a source of national advertising programming, a Source of local advertising programming and a programming source using the interactive application.
10. 10. The system of clause 8, characterized in that each top layer of apparatus further comprises multiple applications that can be invoked by a subscriber.
11. 11. The system of clause 10, characterized in that each event record comprises: (1) an application identifier corresponding to the application associated with the registered event; (2) an event identification code; and (3) a time stamp associated with the start of the event.
12. 12. The system of clause 11, characterized in that each application creates an event record upon detection of the commands selected by the subscriber.
13. 13. The system of clause 8, characterized in that it also comprises an intermediate storage for storing the event records before transmission.
14. 14. The system of clause 8, characterized in that the fusion processor forms a time line of events for each of the multiple boxes of the upper part of the apparatus.
15. 15. The system of clause 14, characterized in that it also comprises an analysis machine for correlating the temporal lines of events with demographic information describing the subscribers.
16. 16. A method for preparing information bulletins on the use of a media delivery network by the subscriber for the purpose of delivering the programming and a fusion processor to analyze the resulting elaborated information, characterized in that it comprises the steps of: collecting information on the use of a network of delivery of media by multiple subscribers, including this step: identify the commands of interest of each subscriber; form event records that record at least the commands of interest and a time associated with the command; transmit the event logs to the fusion processor; merging the event records with data describing the schedule delivered by the media network in order to form event timelines, each of which describes the schedule selected by a particular subscriber for a discrete period of time.
17. 17. The method of clause 16, characterized in that the step of identifying comprises the step of correlating each command of interest with a global table comprising identification codes.
18. 18. The method of clause 16, characterized in that it also comprises the step of filtering the time lines of events in order to classify the television viewing patterns of the subscriber in at least two categories.
19. 19. The method of clause 18, characterized in that the first category comprises programming watched by a subscriber for a time greater than a selected threshold percentage of the total length of the program.
20. 20. A system for determining subscriber viewing habits with respect to a delivery network of means for delivering programming, characterized in that it comprises: a compiler to collect event records that describe the selection of subscribers and the use of programming; devices, coupled to the collector, for communicating the event logs to a fusion processor to process the event records to form a timeline of events corresponding to a selected subscriber describing the schedule delivered to a selected subscriber during a period of particular time, via the media delivery network; devices for storing demographic information about selected groups of subscribers; and where the fusion processor forms multiple temporal lines of events and correlates the demographic information with them.
21. 21. The system of clause 20, characterized in that the fusion processor applies filtering criteria to the event registers to determine the programming viewed by a subscriber for a time greater than a selected percentage of the schedule.
22. 22. The system of clause 21, characterized in that the collector is deployed on an upper appliance box that is associated with a display device for monitoring the delivered schedule.
23. 23. The system of clause 22, characterized in that the subscriber controls the upper appliance box via a remote device in order to invoke and execute a variety of applications and the compiler forms event records; identifying a code corresponding to a command of interest entered by a selected subscriber; and storing in a buffer associated with the collector, an event record comprising (1) the code corresponding to the command and (2) a time stamp.