Interactive video distribution systems – Use surveying or monitoring – By passively monitoring receiver operation
Reexamination Certificate
1996-09-06
2003-11-11
Srivastava, Vivek (Department: 2611)
Interactive video distribution systems
Use surveying or monitoring
By passively monitoring receiver operation
C725S013000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06647548
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an audience measurement system and, more particularly, to a coded
on-coded program audience measurement system which identifies the programs or stations of televisions or radios which are watched, or listened to, by an audience.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Although the present invention is described herein with particular reference to television audience monitoring, it should be realized that the present invention applies also to the monitoring of other forms of audience entertainment, such as to the monitoring of radio audiences. Moreover, as used herein, the term “programs” means segments of various lengths such as all or parts of programs, commercials, promos, public service announcements, and so on.
Broadcast audience measurements have conventionally been made with equipment placed in statistically selected households to monitor the channels to which each receiver in the statistically selected households is tuned. Currently, data from such statistically selected households are collected at a central office and compared with separately collected reference data. This reference data includes a compiled list of those programs which are available on each receivable channel during each time period of interest, and are commonly referred to as program records. (Reference data may alternatively be referred to as station records, cable records, or the like.) By comparing the tuned channels, i.e. the channels to which the receivers in the statistically selected household were tuned, to the programs available on those channels at the time, an inference can be made as to the identities of the programs selected by the members of the household.
Conventional audience measurement equipment is expensive to install in a statistically selected household. A significant part of this expense is associated with the need to calibrate the tuned channels to the corresponding program sources (especially when the signals that come into the household are routed through a multitude of tuners, such as television tuners, cable converters, VCR tuners, and the like). Another significant part of this expense arises from the common need to open up (i.e., intrude into) monitored receivers and/or associated equipment so that the installer of the audience measurement equipment can secure access to the tuners of these receivers and/or associated equipment. Also, members of the statistically selected households may be reluctant to permit such intrusions for fear that the intrusions will cause damage or be unsightly.
Moreover, there is always at least some inherent confusion in the viewing records produced by an audience measurement system because, although the system accurately reports both the channels to which the receivers in a statistically selected household are tuned and the times during which those receivers are tuned to those channels, the programs currently being broadcast on those channels and at those times are not always accurately known. One suggested approach to avoiding this confusion is to label each broadcast program with an ancillary code (e.g., a digital code written on a selected video line in the vertical blanking interval of each video program to be broadcasted and/or monitored). This ancillary code can then be read by the metering equipment in the sampled households and can be compared (e.g., in a central office computer) to the ancillary codes stored in a code-program name library. The code-program name library contains a manually entered list of program names and the ancillary codes associated therewith. Thus, given an ancillary code of a program selected for viewing and/or listening in the sampled households, the program name of this program can be easily determined from the library. Such a system, however, has not been successfully employed in statistically selected households for audience measurement because it requires all possible programs to be encoded before a complete measurement can be made, and because it requires an ancillary code that can pass through a variety of distribution and broadcasting processes without being stripped or corrupted and thereby rendered illegible.
Therefore, instead of reading ancillary codes in statistically selected households in order to identify the programs to which receivers are tuned, ancillary codes are read in each market area in order to instead verify the program records. That is, the typical audience measurement system determines both the channels to which the receivers in the statistically selected households are tuned and the times that the receivers are tuned to those channels. The tuned channels, and the times during which those channels are tuned, are periodically transmitted to a central facility where the tuned channels, and the times during which those channels are tuned, are compared to the aforementioned program record. This program record is compiled from information supplied by the sources of these programs, and is intended to reflect the identity of the programs which are supposed to be aired at the times indicated in the program records. Current systems which read the ancillary codes of these programs are used simply to verify the accuracy of the program records, i.e. to verify that the programs were actually aired at the intended times and on the intended channels as indicated in the program records. Accordingly, even though not all programs are labelled with ancillary codes, some are. These ancillary codes are read in order to verify that at least those programs, which contain ancillary codes, were aired at the intended times and on the intended channels.
An example of such a system is disclosed by Haselwood, et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,025,851, which is assigned to the same assignee as the current application. The system disclosed therein monitors those programs which have an ancillary code written on a video line of one or more of a video program's vertical blanking intervals. The system described in this patent, which is generally referred to as the Automated Monitoring of Line-up (AMOL) system, has been in general use in the United States for over a decade, and is used to determine (i) the identity of aired programs, (ii) the local stations which air these programs, and (iii) the times during which these programs are aired. A system of this type significantly reduces the complexity, and improves the accuracy, of the resulting program records that are an essential element of current national television audience measurements. The AMOL system has not been used heretofore within statistically sampled households due to intrusive installations of metering equipment, code loss error problems, and lack of codes in some programs all of which can be more successfully remedied at a central monitoring site, but that are intractable in sampled households.
Other code monitoring systems include the radio audience monitoring system disclosed by Weinblatt in U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,106. Weinblatt teaches an audience measurement system in which each participant wears a metering device that includes a microphone and a detection circuit which responds to in-band codes in the programming. Weinblatt discusses background noise as a problem in this method, and teaches that such noise is avoidable by using a microphone having a low sensitivity. The system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,031 utilizes a robust video luminance coding method with a low data rate. The system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,945,412 utilizes a sub-audible 40 Hz tone to encode the audio portion of a broadcast.
In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/981,199, (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,100), which is assigned to the same assignee as the current application, Thomas et al teach a multi-level encoding system in which an ancillary code may be inserted into a program at each level of distribution of the program. Each ancillary code identifies the source in its corresponding level of the multi-level encoding system. Thus, the program may be tracked through the distribution system.
As discussed above, systems which rely
Harkness David H.
Lu Daozheng
Grossman & Flight LLC
Nielsen Media Research, Inc.
Srivastava Vivek
LandOfFree
Coded/non-coded program audience measurement system does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Coded/non-coded program audience measurement system, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Coded/non-coded program audience measurement system will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3168753