Abstract: A system and method of identifying and providing content to a user is described. The method is performed by a controller with an internet interface. A controller receives electronic program guide data, the electronic program guide data being selectively displayed on a primary display device. An attribute processor parses the received electronic program guide data to identify at least one program description attribute for a currently tuned program. A content processor searches the received electronic program guide and detects at least one further program having the identified at least one program description attribute. The content processor identifies the at least one further program as recommended content in step and a user interface generator generates, a user interface display including the recommended content user interface including a user selectable data item representing the recommended content for display on a secondary display device different from the primary display device.

Abstract: An electronic program guide is displayed where the program guide indicates the various media being consumed by a plurality of users. Such users can be linked together via a relationship from a social networking website. In addition, the grid can display broadcast channel listings. The grid optionally provides the feature of adding and removing corresponding user and channel listings.

Abstract: In response to a request for media, a determination is made whether a user should receive the requested media. When the user has the proper content privilege, a content manager will authorize the delivery of such content. Otherwise, alternative content is delivered to the user based on the content privileges.

Abstract: A method and system are provided for supporting multiple-screen interactivity between at least a first screen on a first device and a second screen on a second device. The system includes an interactivity server for providing complementary content for display on the second screen relative to primary content displayed on the first screen. The system further includes a communication device for communicating the complementary content to the second device to display on the second screen thereof.

Abstract: Robust Header Compression (ROHC) offers a way to compress packet header information for more efficient transmission of data. The compression is achieved through various confidence modes set up by the transmitter and the receiver. The Initialization and Refresh state (IR) is the first state of the compressor. This provides a complete, uncompressed context of the data that is being transmitted. In typically operation, the ROHC compressor will periodically transmit IR packets providing context information allowing the ROHC decompressor to decompress one or more packets following the IR packet. However, under certain conditions such as decompressor start-up, it is possible for the decompressor to miss an IR packet. Exemplary methods and apparatus are described in which a decompressor uses a later-received IR packet to decompress earlier packets for which the decompressor had not received context information.

Abstract: At a receiving device after a power-on or physical channel change, the physical channel is monitored for activity relating to services for which electronic service guide (ESG) data had been previously cached. The ESG data for a service will include some service identification information, such as an interne protocol (IP) address associated with the service. The monitoring of the physical channel for activity related to a service can be done by listening for the IP address associated with the service. If activity is detected, the service is determined to be active and its cached ESG data valid. Service acquisition data included in the cached ESG data is used to present the service to the user. The invention thus allows the presentation of services to the user using cached ESG data as soon as the services are detected to be active, without the need to wait for the reception of fresh ESG data.

Abstract: In the transmission of streams of data, such as coded video, staggercasting, in which a primary and a secondary stream are transmitted at some relative time offset (i.e., “staggered”), allows a receiver to pre-buffer frames of the secondary stream to replace frames of the primary stream that may have been lost in transmission. In an illustrative implementation, staggercasting is performed in which the secondary stream contains a subset of the coded video frames transmitted in the primary stream. The primary stream contains reference frames, which are essential to properly decoding the video data, as well as disposable frames which are not. The secondary stream, however, contains copies of the reference frames and may contain copies of some of the disposable frames or no disposable frames at all. When frames of an interleaved stream of the primary and secondary streams are lost, such an arrangement will allow reconstruction at the receiver of an uninterrupted video stream at a temporarily reduced frame rate.

Abstract: An apparatus encodes a video signal for providing a scalable video coded (SVC) signal comprising a base layer video coded signal and an enhancement layer video coded signal, wherein the base layer video coded signal has more random access points than the enhancement layer video coded signal.

Abstract: An apparatus encodes a signal for providing an MPEG-2 encoded signal having associated initialization data such as I-frames; and transmits the signal, wherein the transmitted signal occurs in bursts for conveying the MPEG-2 encoded signal, wherein each burst has a duration and occurs in a time slicing cycle, each time slicing cycle comprising at least the burst duration and an off-time, and wherein at least one I-frame is conveyed in a burst and repeated in every following burst until a new I-frame is received for transmission.

Abstract: A scheduler schedules multimedia content files for transmission over a broadcast network. Multimedia content files can be any sort of audio/video clips like, sports video, music video, news clip, movie sound track etc. In particular, the scheduler determines a transmission order for content files and generates an electronic service guide having a static part and a dynamic part such that content scheduled in the dynamic part may have a different transmission order in different versions of the electronic service guide. Schedule timing information and meta data information is transmitted over a broadcast network along with the clips so that receivers can do selective reception of their preferred clips, saving battery power and storage.

Abstract: A scheduler schedules multimedia content files for transmission over a broadcast network. Multimedia content files can be any sort of audio/video clips like, sports video, music video, news clip, movie sound track etc. In particular, the scheduler determines a transmission order for content files as a function of a dynamic priority value, which is determined in accordance with at least a dissimilarity measure between the content files; wherein the dissimilarity measure of the media content files is further determined as a function of the clip meta data associated with each clip. Schedule timing information and meta data information is transmitted over a broadcast network along with the clips so that receivers can do selective reception of their preferred clips, saving battery power and storage.

Abstract: The present invention advantageously provides a method, apparatus and system for personalized broadcast media content including a user interface for enabling personalization, which provides efficient use of network bandwidth and minimizes receiver device battery usage. In one embodiment, a user profile is pre-defined on a receiving device to indicate the recording interests of the user. Individual clips to be broadcast are associated with flexible metadata tags, such that when content, particularly video programs, is broadcast, the receiver device selects individual programs to record based upon content tags matching the user interests indicated in the profile. The selection process can also consider viewing statistics.