Echostar Technologies Corporation

Dish Network LLC

Dish Technologies L.l.c.

Kenneth Robert Hodge

Steven Michael Casagrande

Charlie William Zetterower

David A Kummer

William Michael Beals

Anand Menon

Systems, methods, and processor-readable media are provided for content distribution for a multi-channel content distribution system. A content item may be received by a video handling system. The content item may include video data, the content item corresponding to media for delivery to a television receivers via channel components. A metric of the content item may be detected as a function of time. Viewership data received from data sources may be processed, the viewership data indicative of one or more characteristics of viewers. The viewership data may be mapped to the content item. The content item may be qualified based on the viewership data to yield a qualification result for the content item. An encoding parameter to encode the content item may be determined based on the metric and the qualification result. Encoding of the content item may be specified in accordance with the encoding parameter.

Viewership-balanced video multiplexing

Original transmitters of television broadcast content, such as national broadcasters, may tunnel various data such as SCTE-35 messages through a special closed captioning service before handoff to their local affiliates. The tunneled SCTE-35 messages may thus survive the re-encoding of both the local broadcaster to an over-the-air (OTA) retransmission, and re-encoding by any subsequent cable or satellite television providers as well. An uplink center and television service provider (e.g., a cable or satellite system) may receive the transport stream from the local broadcaster, may strip out the tunneled SCTE-35 messages from extra closed captioning streams at the uplink, re-create the SCTE-35, and then process it at the uplink of the satellite system, for example, by performing ad insertion, re-muxing the SCTE-35 for the satellite broadcast, and/or modifying it and sending it over the satellite broadcast on a separate PID to the set top boxes for those STBs for ad insertion.

Message tunneling over closed captioning

Arrangements for preparing a television channel for presentation are presented. A tuner of a television receiver may tune to a first television channel and the first television channel may be output for presentation. One or more idle tuners of the television receiver may be identified. One or more television channels other than the first television channel may be selected for preparation. The one or more television channels may be selected prior to receiving user input selecting a television channel of the one or more television channels for presentation. Each of the one or more television channels may be prepared for presentation by tuning, by each tuner of the one or more idle tuners, to the one or more television channels prior to receiving the user input selecting the television channel of the one or more television channels for presentation.

Using idle resources to reduce channel change times

Arrangements for preparing a television channel for presentation are presented. A set of one or more tuners that are idle may be identified. Being idle may correspond to not being used to receive any television channel data for presentation or recording. An electronic programming guide that indicates programming may be output for presentation. One or more television channels may be selected for preparation. The television channels may be selected based at least in part on one or more electronic programming guide operations and/or prior to receiving user input selecting a television channel of the one or more television channels for presentation. Each of the television channels may be prepared for presentation by tuning, by each tuner, to the one or more television channels prior to receiving the user input selecting the television channel of the television channels for presentation.

Fast channel change from electronic programming guide

Various embodiments of apparatus, systems and/or methods are described for generating metadata utilized by a DVR to filter content from a video stream. A video stream is reviewed to identify portions the video stream to skip during presentation of the video stream. Text data associated with the video stream is parsed to identify a string in the text data that identifies boundaries of the portions of the video stream that are to be skipped during presentation by the DVR. The string is provided to the DVR, and the DVR utilizes the string to skip the portion of the video stream during presentation of the video stream by the DVR.

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Castle Rock, CO, United States of America

Kenneth Robert Hodge