Echostar Technologies L.l.c.

Dish Technologies L.l.c.

Dish Network L.l.c.

Echostar Technologies Corporation

Echostar UK Holdings Limited

Nagrastar LLC

Steven Michael Casagrande

David A Kummer

Robert Drew Major

William Michael Beals

Charlie William Zetterower

Kenneth Robert Hodge

Yunfeng Yang

Mark Templeman

Christopher Boyd Tirpak

Germar Schaefer

Kranti Kilaru

Anthony Kozlowski

Max Stephen Gratton

John Card, Ii

Jason Anguiano

Gregory Duval

William Norris Moran

Charles W Ergen

Michael Cavanaugh

John Card

'Binge watching' of multiple episodes of a program is improved by the player device automatically skipping repeated portions of the program. Opening and closing credit scenes, for example, can be automatically skipped to thereby allow the viewer to progress through the entire season of programming at an even faster rate than was previously thought possible. Programming to be skipped may be identified by detecting audio or other digital fingerprints in the content itself, for example. Content to be skipped may be identified to the playback device according to presentation time stamp (PTS) or other time markers.

Automated content identification for binge watching of digital media

Various systems, devices and methods automatically identify advertisements or other portions of television or other media content prior to broadcast using automated content analysis. Information about identified content may be used for any number of different purposes, including advertisement identification; advertisement replacement; second screen browsing or augmentation of identified content; tracking of times or places that ads or other content are viewed; and many others.

Automated identification of video program content

'Binge watching' of multiple episodes of a program is improved by the player device automatically skipping repeated portions of the program. Opening and closing credit scenes, for example, can be automatically skipped to thereby allow the viewer to progress through the entire season of programming at an even faster rate than was previously thought possible. Programming to be skipped may be identified by detecting audio or other digital fingerprints in the content itself, for example. Content to be skipped may be identified to the playback device according to anchor points or other references in the programming itself.

Automated content identification for binge watching of digital media using auto-skip processing

Systems, devices and processes reduce the amount of memory or disk space needed to store encoded video content used in adaptive video streaming by eliminating certain portions of the recorded program from one or more copies of the encoded program. Content occurring before or after a scheduled start of a program, for example, can be retained in only a subset of the encoded copies so that the program content is available to be streamed, but only at certain video qualities. Commercials or other less popular portions may also be eliminated in one or more encoded copies. By eliminating the less-likely-to-be-viewed portions of the content from some (but not all) of the encoded copies, the total amount of storage space needed to store the encoded program is reduced without compromising the ability to play back all portions of the recorded program.

Reducing digital video recorder storage through reduced encoding of certain program portions

Systems, devices and automated processes detect piracy of broadcast television signals through selective delay of decrypted code words that are used to render satellite or other received television signals. Smart cards or similar access control hardware are programmed to selectively delay delivery of cryptographic code words based upon the identity of the receiver device. The delayed delivery of the code words produces intentional glitches in the content rendered by the receiver, thereby allowing viewers of the rendered content to ascertain the identity of the device.

Selectively delaying control word delivery for piracy identification

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

A television navigation device, such as a digital video recorder (DVR), searches for a television channel program lineup in an electronic program guide (EPG) of a service provider that matches the television channel program lineup for what the television navigation device understands to be that of a particular television channel. The television navigation device then assigns the particular television channel to the service provider's channel identifier of the matching television channel the EPG. This channel identifier will then be used by the television navigation device to command the receiving device associated with the service provider to tune to the particular television channel at the appropriate time.

Systems and methods for synchronization of television channel data

A method for creating an announcement stream for a geographic region is provided. The method receives, at a designated computer system, characterizing metadata for a first audio/video stream; analyzes a second audio/video stream to obtain characterizing metadata for the second video stream; compares, with the computer system, the characterizing metadata for the first video stream to the characterizing metadata for the second video stream to generate offset data; and calculates timing information corresponding to segment boundaries for the second video stream using the offset data.

Geographically independent determination of segment boundaries within a video stream

Methods, systems and devices for characterizing user viewing behavior are described. A method of tracking user viewing includes presenting media content to a user via a media device, the media content including closed-caption information, and determining that a user has initiated, at a first time, a user interface event (e.g., a 'trick-mode' event) that modifies a playback rate of the media content. An offset time is determined, corresponding to a difference between the first time and a second time corresponding to an occurrence of a unique string within the closed-caption information Viewing behavior of the user is then characterized based on the media content, the offset time relative to the unique string, and an event type associated with the user interface event.

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Castle Rock, CO, United States of America

Steven Michael Casagrande