181 results about "Media on demand" patented technology

An interactive television system is provided in which a user can use an interactive television application to access and request media-on-demand programming. The interactive television application may display customized interface display screens that include video-on-demand programs and categories that may be of particular interest to the user. These programs and categories of interest may be based on the user's personal profile. Once a list of programs and categories based on a user's personal profile is generated, one or more of these programs may be incorporated in a menu interface template to generate a video-on-demand menu customized for the user.

A method for providing configurable access to media in a media-on-demand system also can include delivering the media to a first client device in a format compatible with the first client device; interrupting the delivery of the media; recording a bookmark specifying a position in the media where the interruption occurred; and resuming delivery of the media to a second client device, the resumed delivery beginning at a position in the media specified by the recorded bookmark. The method further can include identifying device properties for each of the first and second client devices; delivering the media to the first client device in a format compatible with the identified device properties for the first client device; and, delivering the media to the second client device in a format compatible with the identified device properties for the second client device.

A profile includes an indication of one or more topics of interest. A mixing server is configured to create a custom media channel based on the profile. A playback application is configured to provide the custom media channel upon a request from a user, wherein the custom media channel includes more than one item of multimedia content.

The invention can be viewed as a system for providing media information to a user via an interactive media services client device coupled to a programmable television services server device. A method of the preferred embodiment of the present invention includes receiving user input and excluding one or more media titles from a media title list based on the user input.

The exemplary embodiments describe systems and methods for multimedia-on-demand services. A multimedia-on-demand system includes a mass storage device that receives and stores multimedia content items. Memory couples to the mass storage device and stores a multimedia-on-demand data table and multimedia-on-demand instructions. The multimedia-on-demand data table includes a multimedia content identifier field corresponding to a multimedia content item stored on the mass storage device. The multimedia-on-demand data table may also include a multimedia content usage indicator field associated with the multimedia content item. The multimedia-on-demand instructions are executed by a processor and include instructions to automatically receive the multimedia content items. The multimedia-on-demand instructions also send a multimedia-on-demand usage message based at least in part on the multimedia content usage indicator.

The invention can be viewed as a system for providing media information to a user via an interactive media services client device coupled to a programmable television services server device. A method of the preferred embodiment of the present invention includes receiving user input and excluding one or more media titles from a media title list based on the user input.

Various techniques for providing instantaneous media services are disclosed. Some of the techniques provide an instantaneous media-on-demand system, process and method for the same. Such a system offers a dynamic library with a significant number of titles from which a user may select and offers play back a desired title fairly instantly. To facilitate instant playback, a file pertaining to a title is fragmented into a header and segments. The header is seeded in all boxes in service and none, one or more segments are distributed to the network of boxes. When the title is ordered, the header is instantly played back while the segments, if not locally available, are streamed in respectively from the boxes having the segments to enable continuous playback of the ordered title.

A method for initiating or recovering a media-on-demand session in a distributed media-on-demand network consisting of N streaming nodes (203 . . . 204), the method having:

• • a. a first step wherein a client device (201) sends a setup request (251; 256) to a highly available redirector device (221) to request initiation or recovery of said session;
  • b. a second step wherein the redirector device (221) selects a streaming node (203; 204) for the session; and
  • c. a third step wherein the redirector device (221) instructs the client device (201) to use the selected media streaming node (203; 204) for that session.

A further distinctive feature is that the client device (201) requests media delivery from the selected media-streaming node either from the beginning (for initiation) or from the last position (for recovery).

A scalable Media-on-Demand (MoD) method to a large group of users in the Internet. This method makes use of peer buffering capabilities to collaborate in the distribution and downloading of media, facilitated by a central repository for the search of optimal peers as parent nodes to connect to and for the support of advanced features such as fast forward and backward plays. The method relieves the server load by shifting the media streaming functionality to the client side with high media receiving continuity and quality, leading to well-balanced and low network loads.

For use in media communications, e.g. in the delivery of video and audio or in teleconferencing, a media file or title is partitioned for secured, efficient delivery. A data sequence representing the file is partitioned into smaller subsequences, with a first subsequence being chosen to convey a degraded-quality representation of the data, and the other sequences for complementing the first subsequence to obtain a superior-quality representation. Among areas of applicability are media on demand, real-time communications and broadcasting, and online media locker, jukebox and chat room services.

A method and apparatus for broadcasting media objects for such bandwidth-intensive applications as Media on Demand (MoD) or Video on Demand (VoD) employ a novel StairCase Broadcast (SCB) scheme. A media server in accordance with one example of the invention includes a fragmenter that fragments media objects into multiple segments, with each segment provided to a corresponding streamer. Each streamer periodically and continuously streams data associated with its corresponding media segment on a connection between the server and a media client. A download controller in the media client selectively causes the proper streams to be received for downloading from the server in accordance with the fragmentation of the selected media object and the number of streams that the client can simultaneously receive for downloading. A selector is operable to cause data from each successive segment to be downloaded from the corresponding stream immediately regardless of the position in the period associated with the successive segment. By its design, the method and apparatus of the present invention allow for lossless broadcast of media contents with de-coupled per-media-object server and client bandwidth design considerations.

A media-on-demand (MOD) portal application allows users to view and access from a single display interface MOD content provided by multiple media providers, such as vendors and service providers. The MOD portal application may provide grid display screens showing program listings of available media content. The grids may include rows and columns, where each row and each column includes program listings associated with a particular category. In one illustrative grid, each row includes programming from a single media vendor and each column includes programming of a particular genre. A media guidance application is also provided which automatically determines if a user does not watch an MOD program the user has ordered. The media guidance application may automatically make the unwatched program available to the user at a later time, for example by automatically recording the program or by allowing the user to access the program at the later time.

An interactive television system is provided in which a user can use an interactive television application to access and request media-on-demand programming from one or more specific vendors. The interactive television application may display vendor-specific interface screens that allow the user to access and request content from a particular vendor. The application may generate a vendor-specific interface screen by incorporating vendor-specific interface elements into an interface template. The template may include vendor-invariant interface elements and attributes for the incorporated elements. The generated vendor-specific interface screen may then be displayed on the user equipment. The system may also include a remote server to provide vendor-specific interface elements and templates to the application, and memory on the user equipment where these elements and templates may be stored.

This invention treats of a two-level cache management method for continuous media files of a proxy server. In the first level, the method reserves collapsed buffers in the cache for every active client attended by the proxy server. To save bandwidth and memory space collapsed buffers can be concatenated and overlapped when content belongs to the same continuous media file. The proxy manages collectively the collapsed buffers of each client, which cooperate by making its content available to the whole system, reducing traffic over the communication network and on the media-on-demand server. In the second level, the method allows proxy servers to cooperate between themselves, by concatenating collapsed buffers when necessary, increasing the amount of available shared media in the cache, saving bandwidth both on the media-on-demand server and on the communication network backbone.