Metadata-Driven Menu Structure for Satellite Content Delivery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Satellite television systems face challenges in efficiently managing and communicating a wide variety of content to users, including the need to keep track of available content and provide users with accurate information about available programming, which strains satellite resources and requires effective metadata communication.
Innovation Solution
A content processing system that receives metadata from content providers, populates user device menus with this metadata, and communicates it to user devices, allowing for the creation of dynamic menu structures and guide systems that inform users of available content, using a combination of satellite and broadband technologies for efficient content delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If satellite television systems broadcast a large selection of channels and pay-per-view programs to multiple users simultaneously, then user content availability and service variety are improved, but satellite resource consumption and system complexity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses metadata as a simplified copy or representation of actual content. Instead of broadcasting full content details and managing complex content delivery for each user, the system transmits compact metadata descriptors that represent content information. This allows multiple users to access content information efficiently without requiring proportional satellite resources for each content instance, resolving the contradiction between content availability and resource consumption.
2Loss of information
If the system provides detailed content information to users through traditional broadcasting methods, then user information accuracy is improved, but satellite bandwidth consumption and transmission time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential information elements needed to describe content (metadata) rather than transmitting complete content or exhaustive content descriptions. This extraction approach maintains sufficient information accuracy for user decision-making while dramatically reducing transmission time and satellite bandwidth requirements, directly resolving the contradiction between information accuracy and transmission efficiency.
3Measurement precision
If the system manages and tracks all available content centrally, then content tracking accuracy is improved, but system complexity and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the fundamental parameter of content representation from complete content data to compact metadata descriptors. This parameter transformation maintains content tracking accuracy by preserving essential content identification and description information while reducing system complexity in metadata generation, transmission, and processing, effectively resolving the contradiction between tracking precision and system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method includes a user device and a content processing system receiving content from a content provider, assigning a material identification to the content, receiving content information different than the content, associating the content information and the content and communicating the content information and material identification to the user device. The user device forms a menu from the content information and associated material identification, generates a menu selection from the menu, and communicates the material identification associated with the menu selection to the content processing system. The content processing system communicates the content corresponding to the menu selection to the user device.