GB2455331A

GB2455331A - Retrieving media content

Info

Publication number: GB2455331A
Application number: GB0723838A
Authority: GB
Inventors: James Clive Justin Weeks; Michael Cutler
Original assignee: British Sky Broadcasting Ltd
Current assignee: Sky UK Ltd
Priority date: 2007-12-05
Filing date: 2007-12-05
Publication date: 2009-06-10
Anticipated expiration: 2027-12-05
Also published as: GB2455331B; GB0723838D0

Abstract

A media system stores 15 a plurality of media content items 21 for transmission to a user device 13a,13b,13c in response to requests for the items. A media server 11 stores the plurality of media content items which are each associated with a score vector having a plurality of values indicative of a defined relevance to respective predefined labels. A user input including an input vector having a plurality of values indicative of a user preference for each of said predefined labels is received from the user device. The media server calculates a desirability score for each of said stored plurality of media content items based on the associated score vector and the input vector and selects at least one of the stored media content items based on the calculated desirability scores. The selected media content items are transmitted to the user device 13a,13b,13c. The system may be used to select media content of particular types, genres, categories or duration.

Description

* 2455331 Personalised News Bulletin

Field of the Invention

This invention relates to an apparatus, method and system for transmission of media content, particularly in a system for providing video clips on demand.

Background of the Invention

In today's society, the supply of information is ever-increasing as well as the forms in which the information is supplied and the mediums used to supply the information. In recent years, the television has been a primary medium for the supply of news stories. A traditional television broadcast of the news is typically half an hour long, with each individual news story or clip averaging a few minutes in duration. In this traditional situation, the user has no choice as to which news stories are being viewed nor the duration of the news broadcast. Therefore, the user may find that much of the half hour news broadcast is wasted time due to the lack of interest in some of the news stories.

It is becoming common to provide the individual news media entities in a central media content system, so that a user may browse, select and download desired media entities to a user device, such as a user's personal computer (PC), set-top box (STB), mobile phone or other portable media device such as a portable video or audio player.

In conventional media content provision systems, a user is typically presented with a list of all of the stored media entities that are available for transmission to a user device for 350520GB spec 5 12 07.doc

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viewing or listening by the user. The media content provision system may also provide different lists of subsets of the stored media entities, for example, a listing of the top ten most downloaded media entities or a listing of the top ten highest user ranked media entities. With the ever-growing amount of media content that is being made available to users on various devices and platforms, there is a need for an interface to provide a user with a selection of media items which may be of interest to the user.

Furthermore, with the vast amount of information available to users, it is becoming less and less likely that the typical user will be able to watch or listen to all of the media entities that are available. Indeed, a user is typically limited by an amount of time available at a particular sitting to watch or listen to a media entity or a sequence of media entities. The problem with providing video media entities, such as video news clips, to such users is that it is difficult to fit a sequence of video media entities to a defined time slot because each individual video media entity has an associated display duration which cannot simply be truncated without disrupting the content of the media entity.

The present invention has been devised with the above problems in mind.

Statement of the Invention

In one aspect of the present invention, a media server is provided for transmitting media content items to a user device. The media server stores a plurality of media content assets, wherein each of said plurality of media content assets is associated J50520G8 spec 5 12 07 doc

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with a score vector having a plurality of values indicative of a defined relevance to respective predefined labels. A user input is received from the user device, the user input including an input vector having a plurality of values indicative of a user preference for each of said predefined labels. The media server calculates a desirability score for each of said stored plurality of media content assets based on the associated score vector and the input vector and selects at least one of the stored media content assets based on the calculated desirability scores. The selected media content assets are transmitted to the user device.

The media server may also receive user input further including an input duration value indicative of a user defined maximum duration for media content items to be transmitted to the user device and the media server selects at least one of the stored media content items depending on the calculated desirability scores and the input duration value, so that media content items are selected to fit the user specified viewing duration.

The media server may also store different versions of each media content asset, each version of a media content asset having a different playback duration to other versions of that media content asset. In this way, the media server may select one of the versions for each of the selected stored media content items depending on the calculated desirability scores and the input duration value.

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In another aspect of the invention, there is provided a media receiver for receiving user input, the user input including a plurality of values indicative of a defined relevance to respective predefined labels, transmitting a request for media content to a media server, the request including the received user input, receiving media content from the media server in response to tranmitting the request, and outputting the received media content.

In yet another aspect of the invention, a media server is provided for transmitting media content items to a user device, the media server storing a plurality of media content items each having an associated playback duration. A user input is received from the user device, the user input including user preference data and a maximum playback duration value, the user preference data being indicative of types of media content of interest to a user, and the media server selects at least one of the stored media content items based on the received user input, wherein the accumulated playback duration of the selected media content items is not greater than the maximum playback duration value included in the received user input. The selected media content items are then transmitted to the user device.

In another aspect of the invention, a media receiver is provided for receiving user input, the user input including user preference data and a maximum playback duration value, the user preference data being indicative of types of media content of interest to a user, and transmits a request for media content to a media server, the J50520GB spec 5 12 07 doc request including the received user input. Media content is subsequently received from the media server in response to tranmitting the request and output to a user.

In yet another aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of operating a media server and a media receiver, as described above. In another aspect, there is provided a computer program arranged to carry out the method when executed on the media server.

Brief Description of the Drawings

Specific embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a block diagram of a media system according to an embodiment of the invention; Figure 2 is a schematic illustration of a plurality of media content items stored in the media content data store; Figure 3 is a block diagram of the functional components of the media content server shown in Figure 1; Figure 4 is a schematic illustration of a example grid of different assets and associated defined scores; Figure 5 schematically illustrates an example of interactive user interface to be displayed to a user by a user device; and Figure 6 schematically illustrates example generated playlists which may be generated by the playlist generator.

350520GB spec 5 12 07.doc Detailed Description of Embodiments of the Invention Figure 1 is a block diagram showing components of the media system according to one embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, a content management server 11 provides media content to a plurality of user devices 13 such as a set-top box (STB) 13a connected to a television (TV), a personal computer (PC) 13b attached to a display monitor and a mobile telephone I 3c. The specific user devices illustrated in Figure 1 are provided by way of example and the present invention is applicable to any other suitable platform, for example other portable media devices. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, the content management server 11 provides media content to the various user devices 13 over respective transmission mediums, such as a satellite network, a radio network, a telephone network, or the internet, to respective ones of the user devices 13. The content management server 11 is coupled to a media content data store such as a hard disk which stores media content items 21, such as audio andlvideo clips. The content management server 11 is also coupled to a playlist data store 17 which stores playlists which are created in response to user requests for the stored media content items 21, as will be discussed below. Each playlist includes a list of media content items 21 to be transmitted to a requesting user device 13 for playback to a respective user.

As shown in Figure 1, the media system may also include a user profile data store 19 for storing historical data relating to a user's past user requests and preferences for media content of interest to the user.

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Figure 2 is a schematic illustration of a plurality of media content items 21 stored in the media content data store 15. In this embodiment, each media content item 21 is an individual news story or asset and may be associated with one or more labels, such as areas of interest relating to the UK, the World, science, politics, business, show business and/or sports. Each news story is associated with a score vector which includes a defined value for each of the predefined areas of interest depending on the relevance of the news story in relation to a particular area of interest. Accordingly, in this embodiment, each news story is associated with a score vector including eight values, for example integers in the range of I to 10 where I indicates news story or asset is not related to a particular area of interest at all and 10 indicates that the news story is particularly relevant to the area of interest. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, in practice, a news journalist would be tasked with giving each new story a score for each area of interest based on his or her expert knowledge of how interesting it would be to the typical news viewer. Alternatively, the scoring process may be automated by a process suitable for processing a text summary of the news clip and defining a score for each area of interest based, for example, on keywords identified in

the text summary.

Additionally, as shown in Figure 2, in an embodiment, different versions of each news story 21 are stored in the media content data store 15. For example, three different versions of a first news story 21-I may be generated: a short version 21-la having a duration often seconds, a medium version 21-lb having a duration of 30 seconds and a long version 21-Ic having a duration of one minute and thirty seconds. Similarly, a J50520GB spec 5.1207 doc

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second news story 21-2 may also include three different versions having different time durations. A short version may, for example, simply be a headline sequence where a short sequence of videos or images are presented with a brief voice-over reading out the associated headlines. A medium version may, for example, be "nib-grab" news clip including an introduction, a talk-over introducing the video clip followed by a talk into the video clip, which may for example be an interview clip. The long version may, for example, be a full report of the news story including an introduction, the report itself and finishing off with a sign-off by the news presenter. Of course, different versions of a particular news story may be edited in any suitable manner to obtain the desired differing lengths of time.

As those skilled in the art will appreciate, a particular news story may have one, two or more different versions of the news story, each having a different time duration.

For ease of processing, the time duration of a particular video clip may be stored in a header of the video clip or as associated metadata.

Those skilled in the art will also appreciate that as news stones develop, new news stories will be generated and stored in the media content data store 15 to replace the respective older stories. Additionally, each media content item may have an associated recency measure or expiration time such that content items have a respective shelf life and are deleted from the media content data store 15 depending on the respective recency measure or expiration time. In this way, the media data store 15 will always store an up-to-date collection of news stories or assets 21.

J50520GB spec 5 12 07 doe Content Management Server Figure 3 is a block diagram showing functional features of the content management server Ii shown in Figure 1, according to the present embodiment. As shown in Figure 3, the content management server 11 includes an input receiver 31 for receiving user input from the user devices 13, such as user requests for transmission of media content items 21. As will be discussed in more detail below, in this embodiment a user request includes a time duration for a generated playlist 23 of selected media content items 21 and an input vector of user interest or preference values. The input vector of user interest values is provided to a score generator 33 which combines the input vector of user interest values with the score vector for each of the media content items 21 stored in the media content data store 15 to obtain a desirability score for each of the stored media content items 21. The generated plurality of desirability scores and the input playlist duration are passed to a playlist generator 35 which sorts the plurality of desirability scores to rank the stored media content items 21 in order of desirability to the user making the request in accordance with the users input vector of interest or preference values. A playlist generator 35 then generates a playlist 23 of selected media content items 21 having the highest desirability scores by selecting associated media content item 21 from the media content data store 15. As will be discussed in more detail below, a resulting playlist 23 of selected media content items 21 may be generated in accordance with the user's desired playlist duration.

J50520GB spec 5 12 07 doc The generated playlist 23 of selected media content items 21 is passed to an output formatter 37 which formats the playlist 23 and the selected media content items 21 into an appropriate format depending on the particular platform and requirements of the requesting user device 13. For example, the output formatter 37 may generate a web page displaying the playlist 23 of selected media content items 21 with an embedded streaming video content playback element for display in a web browser of a PC 13b.

Alternatively, the output formatter 37 may be arranged to format the generated playlist 23 and the selected media content item 21 for display in a user interface of a STB 13a.

As yet a further alternative, output formatter 37 may be arranged to process the plurality of selected media content items 21 of the generated playlist 23 by encoding and compressing each selected media content item 21 and compiling the compressed media content items into a single streaming video file for display on a mobile telephone I 3c or other portable media device. The output formatter 37 passes the appropriately formatted output to a respective output interface 39 for transmission to the requesting user device 13 in an appropriate manner which will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

In the above description, the content management server 11 and the user devices 13 are arranged to store and execute software which controls their respective operation to perform the method described with reference to Figure 3. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, a computer program for configuring a programmable device to become operable to perform the above method may be stored on a carrier and loaded into memory, such as a flash memory of the content management server 11 and/or user J50520G8 spec 5 I 2 07 doc device 13. The program may be downloaded as a satellite broadcast signal and applied as a patch or update to software already resident on the content management server 11 andlor user device 13. The scope of the present invention includes the program, the carrier carrying the program and the broadcast signal.

Score Generator As discussed above, the score generator 33 receives an input vector of user interest values from the input receiver 31 and a plurality of score vectors for each of the stored media content items 21 from the media content data store 15. A desirability score is then calculated for each respective media content item 21, in accordance with the following formula: score input vector vector for of user x = desirability score for media content item media interest content values item In this way, the score vector for a particular new story is weighted according to the user's input vector of interest or preference values, such that news stories are given a higher desirability score if the news story would be of more interest to that user.

As a simplified example, Figure 4 shows an example grid of nine different news stories, in this example labelled Brown/Bush, McCann, NHS, Pakistan, Speeding, Mortgages, PC Virus, Premiere and Britney. For example, the label "Brown/Bush" may J505200B spec 5 12 07 doc represent a news story about Gordon Brown meeting George Bush and the label "Britney" may represent a news story about Britney Spears returning to rehab. For each story, three different versions of coverage are generated, as discussed above. In the simplified example grid shown in Figure 4, only four areas of interest are illustrated, namely foreign, UK, politics and showbiz. Each news story is given a score for each area of interest as discussed above. Therefore, in this example, although the Brown/Bush story has a very high score for the areas of interest relating to foreign, UK and politics, it has a very low score for the area of interest relating to showbiz. On the other hand, the Britney news story has a very low score for the areas of interest relating to UK and politics but a very high score for the area of interest relating to showbiz.

Accordingly, the overall desirability score for these two particular news stories will depend upon the values of an input vector of user interest relating to these areas. If the user is only interested in news stories relating to showbiz, a higher weighting would be placed on the showbiz score and therefore the user is more likely to be presented with the news story relating to Britney Spears rather than the news story about Gordon Brown meeting George Bush.

Playlist Generator The playlist generator 35 receives the plurality of generator desirability scores for each of the stored media content items 21 from the score generator 33 and the user input playlist duration from the input receiver 31. In an embodiment, the playlist generator 35 generates a playlist 23 of media content items 21 by selecting one of the versions of the news stories having the highest desirability scores. The algorithm for J50520GB spec 5 1207 doc selecting which version of the highest scoring media content items may be based on a number of different factors.

Primarily, the accumulated duration of each of the media content items 21 in the generated playlist 23 should not be longer than the input playlist duration as specified by the requesting user. There may also be a minimum or preferred number of news stories that must be selected for each generated playlist 23 which would have an effect on which version of a particular media content item 21 is selected. This minimum or preferred number of news stories may be predefined or may be provided by a user as user input received by the input receiver 31. For example, if a user indicates that the playlist should be at most three minutes long, and a minimum news story count of three is determined, it may not be possible to select a long version of a news story if this does not leave enough time for the remaining two news stories. Selection of which clips to use in a generated playlist should be balanced against what the user ideally would want to watch as represented by the input vector of user interest values. Therefore, playlist generator 35 may be arranged to select a shorter version video clip if one area of interest matches significantly well (i.e. above a predetermined threshold value) while the remaining areas of interest score significantly lower (i.e. below the predetermined lower threshold). The playlist generator 35 may also retrieve historical user profile data from the user profile data store 19 and selection of media content items may additionally be based on the retrieved user profile data.

J50520GB spec 5 12 07 doe Another factor which may be considered by the playlist generator 35 is the platform or medium of the requesting user device. For example, an STB requesting transmission of media content items over a broadband network connection may be capable of more quickly receiving longer video clips compared to a mobile telephone receiving media content items over a slower mobile telephone network connection. The playlist generator 35 may therefore select a greater number of short version clips for a mobile telephone, and may for example select a long version clip for a main story such as the news story with highest desirability score or the news story with the highest score for a particular area of interest.

User Interface Figure 5 illustrates an example of interactive user interface to be displayed to the user by the user device 13 according to the present embodiment. As shown in Figure 5, the user interface includes a user input region presented in this example layout on the right hand side of the example user interface. The user input region include a duration sliding user input 51 to indicate an input playlist duration, and a plurality of interest sliding user inputs 53 (in this example, eight) to indicate respective input values for each of a plurality of areas of interest as discussed above. The user interface also includes a main video clip display region 55 in which received video clips are to be displayed. The user interface may also display the generated playlist 23 as a sequence of video clip thumbnails 57-1 to 57-5 which are to be played in time sequential order, in this example from lefi to right. As discussed above, the video clips in the generated playlist 23 are arranged in increasing order according to the associated desirability score J50520GB spec 5 12 07 doc calculated by the score generator 33. In this embodiment, the user is able to skip to any particular video clip in the playlist by clicking on the thumbnail 57 in the displayed playlist.

Additionally, the user is able to change any of the input sliders 5 1,53 to modify the respective input values. The modified input values are then transmitted by the user device 13 to the content management server 11 and received by the input receiver 31.

Once the modifier input values are received by the input receiver 31, the desirability scores are recalculated for each of the stored media content items 21 by the score generator 33 and a new playlist 23 is generated by the playlist generator 35 according to the updated desirability scores.

Alternative Embodiments It will be understood that embodiments of the present invention are described herein by way of example only, and that various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the invention.

For example, in the embodiment described above, the playlist generator is arranged to select a plurality of media content items from the media content data store and present the sequence of media content items to the output formatter. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, in an alternative, the playlist generator may be arranged to insert adverts or commercials into the generated playlist, for example between selected media content items in the generated playlist. As those skilled in the art will J5OS2OGB spec 5 1207 doc appreciate, any number of adverts may be inserted into a generative playlist and the adverts may be inserted at any position in the generated playlist. Additionally, the playlist generator may be arranged to insert opening titles and closing titles at the beginning and end of a generated playlist, respectively. Figure 6 schematically illustrates four example generated playlists which may be generated by the playlist generator. Additionally, as those skilled in the art will appreciate, the playlist generator may be arranged to select adverts to be inserted into a generative playlist depending on viewing preferences of the requesting user or customer profiling of a particular news story of interest. For example, if a particular news story is associated more heavily with the areas of interest relating to foreign and politics, the playlist generator may be arranged to select and insert a Lexus car advert, whereas if the news story is more heavily related to the areas of interest related to the UK and showbiz the playlist generator may be arranged to insert a Nissan advert. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, with appropriate data capture techniques, the performance of adverts associated with different news story content can be monitored and the placing of adverts can be optimised.

In the embodiment described above, each media content item is an individual news story or asset and is associated with one or more labels, such as areas of interest relating to the UK, the World, science, politics, business, show business and/or sports.

As those skilled in the art will appreciate, the media content items may be an audio and/or video file and the associated labels may be indicative of any other suitable scheme of categonsation. For example, if the media content items are movies or video 150520GB spec S I 2.07.doc clips of movie reviews, the associated labels may be indicative of predefined genres. As another example, if the media content items were sports shows or broadcasts, the associated labels may be indicative of predefined categories of sporting events.

In the embodiment described above, the use provides an input vector of user interest or preference values which is multiplied with the score vector for each stored media content item to calculate a desirability score. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, as an alternative, a simplified scheme of selecting media content items based on user preferences may be employed. Nevertheless, in this alternative, the user may indicate a maximum allowed playback duration and the playlist generator will select media content items based on provided user preferences and the indicated maximum playback duration.

In the embodiment described above, the playlist generator generates a playlist of media content items based on news stories having the highest desirability scores. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, in an alternative, the playlist generator may additionally take into account the content items which have previously been transmitted to a user and/or which have already been viewed by a user and filter out any previously viewed content items from the resulting playlist. A user's history of previously viewed content items may be stored, for example, in the user's profile. In yet another alternative, the filtering may be implemented by way of an additional weighting vector for those content items which have already been viewed. For example, the media content data store may store a previously-viewed weighting vector which can be applied J50520G13 spec 5 12.07 doc to the associated score vector to effectively negatively weight down stories the user has already seen. In this way, relevant media content items may be reused in a generated playlist so that there is always content made available to a user, and in particular for very active users who may otherwise run out of content very quickly.

In the embodiment described above, the playlist generator generates a playlist of media content items by sorting the plurality of desirability scores to rank the stored media content items in order of desirability to the user making the request and selecting a number of media content items having the highest desirability scores. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, in an alternative, the playlist generator may instead be arranged to sort a predetermined selection of media content items, for example, based on a sequence of media content items which were presented in a TV news broadbast bulletin, in order to rank the predetermined selection of media content items based on associated desirability scores. In another alternative, the playlist generator may be arranged to select media content items based on a predetermined sequence of media content items but to select the long version clip for a predetermined number of media content items having the highest desirability scores and to select the short version clip for the remaining media content items. In yet another alternative, each media content item may be associated with a relative position score which is indicative of a relative position within a sequence of content items to be presented and the playlist generator may be arranged to re-arrange a selected sequence of media content items based on the associated relative position scores.

J50520GB spec 5 1207 doc * 2455331 Personalised News Bulletin