Context-Sensitive Notification Display for Television

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Existing television systems fail to effectively manage notifications during programming, potentially disrupting the viewer's experience by interrupting critical or tense moments in content, such as movies or shows.

Innovation Solution

A television receiver monitors metadata synchronized with programming content to determine significant or critical moments and blocks notifications during those times, using a configurable threshold value to prevent interruptions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If notifications are displayed during programming content, then information delivery is improved, but viewer experience deteriorates due to interruptions during critical moments

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvenotification deliveryVSAvoidviewing experience disruption

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary analysis of programming content metadata to identify critical moments before notifications are scheduled to display. By pre-processing the content metadata and detecting significant moments in advance, the system can proactively block notifications that would interrupt these critical segments, thus preserving viewing experience while still delivering non-critical notifications at appropriate times.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system continuously monitors programming content metadata during playback and uses this feedback to dynamically control notification display. By analyzing metadata streams that describe content characteristics and comparing them against thresholds, the system adjusts notification delivery in real-time based on the current viewing context, ensuring notifications are blocked during critical moments and allowed during appropriate segments.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

2Object-affected harmful factors

If notifications are blocked during all programming content, then viewing experience is improved, but information delivery deteriorates due to complete notification suppression

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveviewing experience disruptionVSAvoidnotification delivery

Core Design Contradiction:

Object-affected harmful factorsVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The system applies different notification delivery policies to different segments of programming content based on their local characteristics. By analyzing metadata that describes specific moments in the content (such as action sequences, dialogue-heavy scenes, or transitional segments), the system selectively blocks notifications only during critical local segments while allowing them during non-critical segments, thus maintaining both viewing experience and information delivery.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements partial blocking of notifications rather than complete suppression or complete allowance. By using configurable thresholds and metadata analysis, the system blocks notifications for a specific portion of programming content that is deemed critical, while permitting notifications during the remaining non-critical portions, achieving a balanced approach that addresses viewing experience without completely sacrificing notification delivery.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #16Partial or excessive action

3Loss of time

If metadata analysis is performed to detect significant moments, then notification timing is improved, but system complexity increases due to metadata processing requirements

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvenotification timing accuracyVSAvoidmetadata processing system

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of timeVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system introduces metadata as an intermediary layer between the programming content and the notification control logic. Instead of directly analyzing video/audio content to detect significant moments, the system processes pre-generated metadata streams that describe content characteristics. This intermediary metadata layer simplifies the complexity by providing structured information about content segments, making the notification timing system more manageable while still achieving accurate timing.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Data Source

PatentUS10432984B2Context-sensitive notification display

Publication Date: 2019.10.01 ECHOSTAR UKRAINE LLC

AI summary

Controlling the display of notifications to a television viewer based on a contextual parameter that is associated with programming instantly being viewed. An example of such a parameter may include the degree of tension or conflict in a particular movie that is being watched by the television viewer. In this example, a television reciever may monitor during output of the particular movie underlying metadata that quantifies the degree of tension or conflict in the particular movie at particular instants in time.