259results about "Accumulation-type receiver broadcast" patented technology

An information distribution and processing system contains a remote site, a sender and a receiving apparatus. The remote site contains a first set of digital data. The sender delivers a second set of digital data to the receiving device. In one embodiment of the present invention, the receiving device contain a timing device for automatically receiving the second set of digital data at predetermined times. The second set of digital data contains a first set of displayable data, a second set of displayable data, at least one non-displayable symbol, and at least one linking reference associated with the second set of displayable data. If desired, a user can select the second set of displayable data. The associated linking reference is sent to the remote site. The associated linking reference is used by the remote site to search for the additional information, and returns the requested information to the user.

Systems and methods are presented for insertion of assets into a stream of content (e.g., audio and / or video programming). Such assets may be targeted to network users separate from the surrounding content and deliveries thereof confirmed. Among other things, these systems and methods enable a new advertising paradigm based on guaranteed delivery of targeted commercial impressions. In this regard, the systems and methods generally provide assets with broadcast network programming (e.g., via actual insertion and / or switching to an asset channel) based on actual audience observations. For example, asset providers may wish to target assets for delivery according to specific audience classifications (e.g., gender, income level, locale, age, etc.). Programming providers, such as television programmers and radio programmers (e.g., standard tower broadcast radio and satellite radio), may receive information from broadcast network users and insert the assets into available bandwidth based on that information.

Music is blanket transmitted (for example, via satellite downlink transmission) to each customer's user station where selected music files are recorded. Customers preselect from a list of available music in advance using an interactive screen selector, and pay only for music that they choose to playback for their enjoyment. An antipiracy “ID tag” is woven into the recorded music so that any illegal copies therefrom may be traced to the purchase transaction. Music is transmitted on a fixed schedule or through an active scheduling process that monitors music requests from all or a subset of satellite receivers and adjust scheduling according to demand for various CD's. Receivers store selections that are likely to be preferred by a specific customer. In those instances where weather conditions, motion of atmospheric layers or dish obstructions result in data loss, the system downloads the next transmission of the requested CD and uses both transmissions to produce a “good copy”. In conjunction with the blanket transmission of more popular music, an automated CD manufacturing facility may be provided to manufacture CD's that are not frequently requested and distribute them by ground transportation.

In an Internet based personalized radio, where a user has a pre-selected list of songs to be played in a particular order, the invention provides an apparatus and method allowing the user to skip one or more songs without having an unintended delay between skips. This is accomplished by pre-buffering the first ten seconds of each of the next several songs on the list so that, should the user choose to skip to any of the next several songs, the pre-buffered ten seconds of the target song is already available to be played. The apparatus starts to play the pre-buffered port of the target song and starts to download the rest of it at the same time. Because the initial buffering time for the rest of the target song is less than ten seconds, the target song is played smoothly.

An audio-on-demand communication system provides real-time playback of audio data transferred via telephone lines or other communication links. One or more audio servers include memory banks which store compressed audio data. At the request of a user at a subscriber PC, an audio server transmits the compressed audio data over the communication link to the subscriber PC. The subscriber PC receives and decompresses the transmitted audio data in less than real-time using only the processing power of the CPU within the subscriber PC. According to one aspect of the present invention, high quality audio data compressed according to lossless compression techniques is transmitted together with normal quality audio data. According to another aspect of the present invention, metadata, or extra data, such as text, captions, still images, etc., is transmitted with audio data and is simultaneously displayed with corresponding audio data. The audio-on-demand system also provides a table of contents indicating significant divisions in the audio clip to be played and allows the user immediate access to audio data at the listed divisions. According to a further aspect of the present invention, servers and subscriber PCs are dynamically allocated based upon geographic location to provide the highest possible quality in the communication link.

A game system which is operable to update advertisements that are displayed when a game program is executed. The system stores a game program in a memory, receives (i.e., downloads), at predetermined times of operation, for example, on each new day the game program is executed or each time the game program is executed, updated advertising data that relates to at least one advertisement, stores the received advertising data in the memory, executes the game program stored in the memory, and outputs during the execution of the game program display data which corresponds to the stored advertisement data in accordance with the game program code. Further, instead of downloading new advertisements, plural advertisements may be prestored with the game program and only advertisement selection codes are downloaded to update the advertisements that are displayed when the game program is executed.