A method of processing a service in a transmitter, and including generating, by a hardware processor, a first media component and a second media component for the service; generating, by the hardware processor, signaling data for the service; time interleaving, by a time interleaver, the first media component, wherein the first media component is time-interleaved by column-wise writing actual Forward Error Correction (FEC) blocks including the first media component in a Time Interleaving (TI) memory and diagonal-wise reading the first media component in the actual FEC blocks from the TI memory, wherein one or more virtual FEC blocks are skipped during the diagonal-wise reading the written first media component, and wherein a number of the one or more virtual FEC blocks is equal to a difference between a number of the actual FEC blocks and a column number of the TI memory; generating, by a signaling generator, physical layer signaling information, wherein the physical layer signaling information includes first physical layer signaling information and second physical layer signaling information, wherein the first physical layer signaling information includes information for identifying a size of the second physical layer signaling information and wherein the second physical layer signaling information includes information for obtaining the column number of the TI memory; transmitting, by an antenna, the time-interleaved first media component, the physical layer signaling information and the signaling data through a broadcast network; and transmitting, by a network interface, the second media component to a receiver through a broadband network. Further, the signaling data transmitted through the broadcast network includes first timeline information for specifying a timeline of the first media component transmitted through the broadcast network and uniform resource location information for the second media component.

A relay device operable to relay emergency information to a plurality of mobile terminals. The device includes: a receiver configured in use to receive a broadcast signal, the broadcast signal being in a first format and containing the emergency information; a transmitter configured in use to connect to the plurality of mobile terminals using a communication channel: and a processor configured in use to provide the emergency information received in the broadcast signal to the plurality of mobile terminals in a second format using the transmitter, wherein the second format is different to the first format.

A method is disclosed for monitoring the audience of an advertisement over a content distribution system, the advertisement comprising an advertising message associated with an audio content. The method comprises: inserting, within the message, an advertising identifier associated with the advertisement and distributing the audio content with the advertising message to a user of the content distribution system; at a first user device configured to receive the audio content, playing the audio content with the advertising message; at a second user device connected to the first user device and configured to communicate with a data collection server over a data communication network, retrieving a customer identifier uniquely associated with the user; and, during or after playing, sending by the second user device the customer identifier and the advertising identifier extracted from the advertising message to the server to monitor the audience of the advertising message.

Techniques for real-time audience measurement are provided. The techniques include instant message protocol in a DVR environment to obtain real-time audience measurement data to modify the scheduled recording time of a media content in real-time, to bookmark in real-time, and to gather audience ratings on commercials and viewership in real-time.

A controlling device is provided with the ability to present personalized program guide information by using personal preferences provided to a home computing device. The personal preferences are used to filter program guide data received at the home computing device whereby the program guide data will include only programming information for user-specified sources of programming for each of plural, different user-specified periods of time. The filtered program guide data is then downloaded to the controlling device from the home computing device for use in connection with an application of the controlling device that functions to display program guide information within a display of the controlling device.

Techniques for real-time audience measurement are provided. The techniques include instant message protocol in a DVR environment to obtain real-time audience measurement data to modify the scheduled recording time of a media content in real-time, to bookmark in real-time, and to gather audience ratings on commercials and viewership in real-time.

A system and method facilitate digital marketing for sponsors of live television broadcasts. The system allows a user, using an application on a computing device while a piece of sponsored content is being broadcast, to express an interest in the broadcast piece of sponsored content and the interest of the user is communicated to a backend system that selects an endpoint destination associated with the broadcast piece of sponsored content wherein the endpoint destination is a pointer to further digital information about the broadcast piece of sponsored content. The system and method may periodically change the selected endpoint destination based on an event in the sponsored piece of content.

Provided is a method for transmitting a broadcast signal. The method for transmitting a broadcast signal, according to the present invention, can be a broadcast content transmitting method, comprising the steps of: generating, by a first module, a first media stream for broadcast content wherein the first media stream includes a plurality of packets, and at least one of the packets includes time information; generating, by a second module, a second media stream for the broadcast content; transmitting, by a third module, the first media stream through a broadcast network; receiving, by a fourth module, a request for the second media stream from a receiver; and transmitting, by the fourth module, the second media stream to the receiver through the Internet network.

A controlling device is provided with the ability to present personalized program guide information by using personal preferences provided to a home computing device. The personal preferences are used to filter program guide data received at the home computing device whereby the program guide data will include only programming information for user-specified sources of programming for each of plural, different user-specified periods of time. The filtered program guide data is then downloaded to the controlling device from the home computing device for use in connection with an application of the controlling device that functions to display program guide information within a display of the controlling device.

A relay device operable to relay emergency information to a plurality of mobile terminals. The device includes: a receiver configured in use to receive a broadcast signal, the broadcast signal being in a first format and containing the emergency information; a transmitter configured in use to connect to the plurality of mobile terminals using a communication channel; and a processor configured in use to provide the emergency information received in the broadcast signal to the plurality of mobile terminals in a second format using the transmitter, wherein the second format is different to the first format.