POIS Message Format Standardization for Ad Insertion
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current content distribution systems face complexity in managing and processing different formats of advertisement messages, leading to increased operating complexity, memory, and processing power requirements in service provider systems and point of presence devices, due to varying configurations and formats of SCTE-35 messages.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a placement opportunities information system (POIS) and placement opportunities information module (POIM) that maps advertisement messages into a standardized format recognizable to service provider distribution systems and point of presence devices, reducing complexity and processing demands by converting first messages into second messages with a uniform format for combined signaling with video content.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If different formats of advertisement messages (SCTE-35 messages with varying configurations) are processed directly, then content providers can maintain their own message formats, but operating complexity and processing power requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a message format translation layer that acts as an intermediary between content providers and service provider systems. This translation layer converts diverse SCTE-35 message formats from different content providers into a unified standardized format, allowing the service provider to process all advertisement messages using a single parsing mechanism regardless of the original provider's format variations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter of message format standardization by establishing a common standardized format as the internal representation. All incoming messages from different content providers are transformed to match this standard format, which has consistent structure and field definitions, thereby simplifying processing while maintaining support for multiple source formats.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple message formats are supported without standardization, then content providers have format flexibility, but memory and processing power requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
A centralized translation module serves as an intermediary that handles format conversion. This module receives diverse message formats from content providers, translates them into a unified standard format, and forwards the standardized messages to the service provider systems. This approach maintains format flexibility at the content provider level while reducing resource requirements at the service provider level through standardization.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments the message processing function into two distinct parts: format translation (performed by the translation layer) and message processing (performed by service provider systems). This segmentation allows the translation layer to handle format diversity without burdening the service provider systems with multiple parsing mechanisms, thereby reducing their memory and processing power requirements.
3Adaptability or versatility
If advertisement messages are processed without unified standardization, then various content provider configurations can be maintained, but errors and conflicts in message parsing increase
Solution Approach 1:
The translation layer acts as a reliable intermediary that ensures accurate message parsing by standardizing the format before messages reach service provider systems. This standardized intermediate representation eliminates parsing ambiguities and conflicts that would otherwise occur when handling multiple formats simultaneously, thereby improving message parsing accuracy while maintaining support for various content provider configurations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the message format parameter to a standardized structure with consistent field definitions and data types. This parameter standardization ensures that all messages are parsed using the same reliable mechanism, eliminating parsing errors and conflicts that arise from handling multiple format variations, while still allowing different content provider configurations to be supported through the translation layer.
Data Source
AI summary
A content distribution method including receiving in-band signals from respective content providers, where the in-band signals include video content. The method further includes: receiving at a placement opportunities information module first messages associated respectively with the content providers, where the first messages are advertisement messages and/or program messages and have respective formats; and mapping the first messages to second messages, where the second messages have a same format, and where the same format is different than the respective formats and is standardized for point of presence devices. The method further includes: combining the second messages with the video content to generate combined signals; forwarding the combined signals to an insertion module of a headend; generating output signals at the insertion module based on the combined signals; and for each of the output signals, transmitting a non-streaming signal or a streaming signal from the headend to the point of presence devices.