Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/25—Management operations performed by the server for facilitating the content distribution or administrating data related to end-users or client devices, e.g. end-user or client device authentication, learning user preferences for recommending movies
  • H04N21/258—Client or end-user data management, e.g. managing client capabilities, user preferences or demographics, processing of multiple end-users preferences to derive collaborative data
  • H04N21/25866—Management of end-user data
  • H04N21/25891—Management of end-user data being end-user preferences
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
  • G06F16/20—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor of structured data, e.g. relational data
  • G06F16/25—Integrating or interfacing systems involving database management systems
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
  • G06F16/20—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor of structured data, e.g. relational data
  • G06F16/27—Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/23—Processing of content or additional data; Elementary server operations; Server middleware
  • H04N21/239—Interfacing the upstream path of the transmission network, e.g. prioritizing client content requests
  • H04N21/2393—Interfacing the upstream path of the transmission network, e.g. prioritizing client content requests involving handling client requests
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
  • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
  • H04N21/25—Management operations performed by the server for facilitating the content distribution or administrating data related to end-users or client devices, e.g. end-user or client device authentication, learning user preferences for recommending movies
  • H04N21/254—Management at additional data server, e.g. shopping server, rights management server
  • H04N21/2541—Rights Management
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
  • H04N7/00—Television systems
  • H04N7/16—Analogue secrecy systems; Analogue subscription systems
  • H04N7/162—Authorising the user terminal, e.g. by paying; Registering the use of a subscription channel, e.g. billing
  • H04N7/165—Centralised control of user terminal ; Registering at central

Definitions

• the present invention relates to the management and updating of distributed databases, in particular when managing a fleet of pay-TV decoders as well as enabling accessibility to these databases.
• a management center In a system comprising a management center and a plurality of subscribers spread over a large territory, each having a subscriber database, it is known to send over the air, by satellite or by cable, information for managing and updating the database of these subscribers. These messages are addressed either to all subscribers, or to a particular subscriber, or to a group of subscribers.
• the management center contains an interpreter which makes it possible to make the link between the logical address of a subscriber and his physical address, thus allowing the link with all the information distributed in the subscriber databases.
• a request from a system upstream of the center such as the subscriber management system, can access the content of any subscriber database without the need to know the physical address of it.
• the transmission can be carried out in the opposite direction, that is to say that the subscriber management system can interrogate one of the subscriber databases through the interface represented by the management center. This operation is only possible as long as there is a return path between the subscriber module and the management center.
• the center When it comes to updating one or more databases, the center receives the information to be processed and determines the physical address of the subscriber database in order to be able to establish a link with it. this via a connection either by satellite, cable or over the air.
• the content of these subscriber databases reflects the various subscriptions and services to which the subscriber has access.
• the services offered by broadcasters have changed significantly in recent years and the era when only a subscription to one or other of the channels was offered, is over.
• the offer is dynamic, evolving, meeting customer needs.
• the transmission channel is mainly used for the transmission of digital data and the administration information, intended for the subscriber database, can only occupy a very limited place.
• the aim of the present invention is therefore to allow the establishment of complex subscriber profiles and to transmit the information in the most condensed form towards the distributed databases.
• a distributed database management center comprising a main database in which the image of all of the distributed databases is located.
• This management center can not only perform operations according to the content of a database image but can perform operations resulting from the data distributed over several databases.
• the main database also includes subscriber information which is not necessarily contained in the subscriber database.
• This determination can be made by comparing several databases, for example when it is desired to allocate services according to a system of points which are collected from a group of users.
• a group which can represent an institute such as a hospital, which has a large number of subscriber modules. therefore databases.
• a free service will be offered to members of this group on the basis not of data from a single database but on the result of a treatment involving a set of databases.
• Known subscriber management systems can only address one or more databases distributed through a management center, according to addressing criteria defined by the system itself. These criteria are the single addressing, the addressing of a group or the addressing to all databases.
• FIG. 1 represents a management center according to the state of the art
• FIG. 2 represents a management center according to the invention.
• the SMS (Subscriber Management System) system dialogues with the CAS management center (Conditionnai Access System) in order to access one or the other of the databases DB distributed.
• the CAS center serves as an address converter between a high level for SMS and a low level for DB databases.
• the CAS is essentially used to create a logical representation of the different subscriber databases and to allow access that is independent of the implementation. hardware. This logic / physical converter function is the responsibility of CAS.
• One of the other important tasks of the CAS is to support the communication protocol with the databases.
• the CAS according to the invention contains an image of each of the databases to which it is in contact. SMS requests are first processed by the CAS, which determines the database (s) concerned.
• the CAS according to the invention is capable of performing logical operations on the image of the distributed databases in order to satisfy the conditions defined by the SMS.
• the SMS system requires the blocking of the decoding of the transmissions for a given region. This is used for example when holding a sports competition in this region in order to encourage spectators, not to watch the event on television, but to go on site.
• the SMS transmits a blocking request (blackout), specifying the geographical area and the duration.
• the zone information can either contain a list of postal codes, a range of postal codes (start - end) or the designation of a region such as a department, canton or state.
• the CAS determines the set of subscriber databases concerned by this request and, according to the protocol supported by the module managing the subscriber databases, transmits this information to the latter.
• the supported protocol can be of different natures depending on the generation of subscriber database management modules.
• the first generation protocol only recognizes two types addressing is the unique address that a DB has or without address, that is to say intended for all DB databases.
• a variant has been introduced including addressing according to the postal code or according to a range of postal codes.
• the CAS only has to address each DB individually.
• the CAS according to the invention provides the SMS with this type of order which makes it possible to offer tailor-made services. It is thus possible for the SMS to offer to all subscribers of a channel A for more than a year, the availability of a new channel B for a period of one month.
• the CAS determines the databases concerned using the images of these databases contained in the main database and transmits this condition towards the subscriber modules.
• Another aspect of the CAS according to the invention is the determination of a criterion which depends on several databases.
• the previous example concerns the processing of a single subscriber database according to one or more criteria. According to a mode of use of the pay television, it is possible to buy services with the card. The subscriber has a credit in his database which he can use to view, against payment, a program of his choice.
• the CAS according to the invention has means for carrying out the operations implemented on a set of database images in order to determine the desired criterion. If the condition is fulfilled, a transmission will be initiated containing the designation of the group considered and the service offered.
• the CAS will return the corresponding information to the SMS.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Databases & Information Systems (AREA)
• Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
• Signal Processing (AREA)
• Multimedia (AREA)
• Computer Security & Cryptography (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Data Mining & Analysis (AREA)
• Computing Systems (AREA)
• Computer Graphics (AREA)
• Two-Way Televisions, Distribution Of Moving Picture Or The Like (AREA)
• Telephonic Communication Services (AREA)
• Mobile Radio Communication Systems (AREA)
• Management, Administration, Business Operations System, And Electronic Commerce (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Publications (1)

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ID=4551864

Family Applications (1)

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Citations (1)

Family Cites Families (19)

• 2001
  • 2001-05-15 AR ARP010102289A patent/AR028459A1/es unknown
  • 2001-05-16 MY MYPI20012294A patent/MY139757A/en unknown
  • 2001-05-17 US US10/276,613 patent/US20030191784A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2001-05-17 CN CNB018111831A patent/CN1201580C/zh not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2001-05-17 BR BR0110924-3A patent/BR0110924A/pt not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 2001-05-17 JP JP2001585511A patent/JP2003533832A/ja active Pending
  • 2001-05-17 EP EP01928161A patent/EP1297702A1/fr not_active Ceased
  • 2001-05-17 AU AU2001255023A patent/AU2001255023A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2001-05-17 CA CA002409207A patent/CA2409207A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2001-05-17 WO PCT/IB2001/000868 patent/WO2001089214A1/fr not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 2001-05-18 TW TW090111891A patent/TW589893B/zh not_active IP Right Cessation

Patent Citations (1)

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