Comcast Cable Communications, LLC

Srinath V Ramaswamy

Weidong Mao

Jason Press

Methods, systems, and apparatuses for improved content scoring and delivery are described. A quality score for delivered content may be determined based on one or more output metrics. A first quality score may be provided to a content distribution network. The content distribution network may instruct the user device, or the user device may determine without receiving such an instruction, of methods/processes by which it may improve the one or more output metrics associated with output of the delivered content by adjusting one or more output parameters. The first quality score may also be used by the content distribution network to determine methods/processes by which network-related parameters and constraints may be managed in order to improve the quality of delivered content.

Methods, systems, and apparatuses for improved content scoring and delivery

Systems, apparatuses, and methods are described for users to cause replacement of one or more advertisements or other content items. Based on a request to replace a content item, output of the content item may be interrupted. An alternate content item may be output during a time period when a portion of the interrupted content item was scheduled to be output.

Systems and methods for content item insertion

Methods and systems are described for content synchronization. A computing device may receive video content and audio content. The computing device may determine an error associated with a video content output time or an audio content output time.

Methods and systems for content synchronization

Systems, apparatuses, and methods are described for encoding media content based on an ending delay of first media content and a startup delay of second media content. Second media content may be configured for transmission after first media content in a media content stream. The first media content may be associated with an ending delay corresponding to transmission and/or decoding of frames of the first media content. The second media content may be associated with a starting delay corresponding to transmission and/or decoding of frames of the second media content. The first media content and the second media content may be encoded using different encoding formats. Based on comparing the ending delay and starting delay to a threshold, encoding parameters may be selected, one or more frames may be removed from the first media content and/or the second media content, and/or buffers of one or more devices may be adjusted.

Seamless content encoding and transmission

The disclosure relates to a method of processing a sequence of image frames to reduce its length. One implementation may involve extracting coefficients (e.g., Discrete Cosine Transform coefficients) from components of individual frames, and comparing the resulting coefficients for sequential frames to identify frames having the least change from a prior frame. Also, scene change values for each frame may be calculated and placed in a sorted list to facilitate identification of frames for removal. Frame removal may be conducted in rounds, where a group of pictures (GOP) may only have one frame removed for any given round.

Video management

Systems and methods are described herein for processing video. An encoder may generate, for a sequence of video frames, a plurality of first segments and a plurality of second segments. The plurality of first segments may comprise stream access points (SAPs) of a first type that do not reset a picture reference buffer. The plurality of second segments may comprise SAPs of a second type that do reset the picture reference buffer. The encoder may send segments of the plurality of first segments to a computing device streaming video when network conditions are steady. The encoder may send a segment of the plurality of second segments following a switch, by the computing device, to a different bitrate based on a change to the network conditions. Once the computing device has decoded the segment the plurality of second segments, the encoder may send subsequent first segments at the different bitrate.

Methods, systems, and apparatuses for enhanced adaptive bitrate segmentation

The disclosure relates to a method of determining complexities and/or quality of video segments of a video program and providing data indicating the quality of video segments to user devices. Such data may be included in a manifest file of the video program. Based on the data indicating the complexities and/or quality of video segments, a user device or the system may choose a bitrate version for each video segment that minimizes network bandwidth usage while providing sufficient video quality.

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East Windsor, NJ, United States of America

Srinath V Ramaswamy