Improved technical functionality is provided to dynamically select and seamlessly play advertisements immediately before playing of a recorded program upon selection of the recorded program for playing, or upon other detected events and conditions associated with the set-top-box (STB) or user. In some embodiments, this is performed by using metadata which may be delivered to and stored on a digital video recorder (DVR) prior to recording the program, providing a technical solution to enable opportunities for additional advertisement impressions. Playing of the advertisement may also or instead occur upon the recorded program finishing playing. Thus, the technical solution provides the additional opportunity for the content creator and/or the satellite television or cable service provider to sell advertising spots in addition to those already sold for breaks within the recorded program.

A system and method to aggregate subscriber-perspective data from live data packets of network traffic. The method includes inspecting live packets of network traffic exchanged with a plurality of subscriber end devices. Network traffic exchanged with a subscriber end device can include network traffic exchanged with a different subscriber end device or with an application server. The packet inspection is performed at a location of interception of the live packets, each subscriber end device being an end device correlated with a subscriber. The method further includes selecting, at the location, content data of the inspected packets that correspond to packets exchanged with a selected subscriber end device of the plurality of subscriber end devices, aggregating, at the location, the content data selected, wherein the content data has not been previously aggregated, and outputting, at the location, results of the aggregation.

An apparatus having a device of a user and a computer is disclosed. The computer may be configured to (i) transfer a manifest to the device in response to a viewing session being opened. The manifest generally has a plurality of modified links to a plurality of bitrates of a video content. Each one of the modified links may include an identifier that is unique to the viewing session. The computer may also be configured to (ii) receive a particular one of the modified links from the device, (iii) log a presence of the viewing session, and (iv) generate a request by removing the identifier from the particular modified link.

A method for cross-domain service optimization is implemented on a computing device and includes defining at least one key quality indicator (KQI) target for at least one end-to-end (E2E) service, where the at least one E2E service crosses more than one domain of a communications network, receiving an indication of quality of experience (QoE) for the at least one E2E service, based on the indication of QoE, translating the at least one KQI target to at least one set of service optimization instructions for each domain from among the more than one domain, and for each domain, applying the service optimization instructions.

A digital service evaluation system evaluates services and user sessions provided by a service, to provide an overall score of the service. The digital service evaluation system detects client sessions associated with one or more devices. The digital service evaluation system obtains a first plurality of scores associated with performance metrics of the client session, and calculates an overall score for the client session. The digital service evaluation system obtains a second plurality of scores and calculates a second overall score. The digital service evaluation system determines a weight for each performance metric based on the first and second plurality of scores and the overall scores. The digital service evaluation system uses the weights to determine which performance metric caused a change in the overall scores. The digital service evaluation system takes an action based on the determination that a performance metric caused a change in the overall scores.

A computer-implemented method in a content delivery network (CDN) comprising multiple content delivery (CD) services including at least one beacon service, the method comprising: at particular CD service in the CDN: (A) obtaining and responding to at least one first request; (B) obtaining and responding to at least one second request; and (C) making a beacon request to a beacon CD service, the beacon request including particular information about: (i) the at least one first request, and (ii) the at least one second request, wherein at least some of the particular information is encoded in the beacon request, wherein the beacon request comprises an HTTP request.

Systems and methods are described for a media guidance application (e.g., implemented on a user device) that improves quality of service while streaming code-agnostic content by optimizing buffering based on bit rate.

A method includes receiving user input indicating a selection of a subset of two or more of a plurality of audio layers for media content to be provided to a user, each of the subset of audio layers corresponding to one or more audio sources, receiving second user input indicating volume levels for the two or more audio layers of the plurality of audio layers, capturing, based on the first user input, the two or more audio layers of the plurality of audio layers for a media content item to be provided to the user, and enabling audio playback based on the two or more audio layers of the plurality of audio layers and without including other audio layers of the plurality of audio layers, the audio playback reflecting the volume levels indicated by the second user input. The method further includes causing the media content item to be provided to the user using the audio playback reflecting the indicated volume levels.

Provided is a method of measuring quality of a video call between a transmitting terminal including processing circuitry and a receiving terminal, the method including processing, by the processing circuitry, original frames included in an original video based on a video call service; replacing, by the processing circuitry, real-time video frames acquired from a camera for a video call with a receiving terminal with at least a portion of the original frames; and transmitting, by the processing circuitry, the portion of the original frames to the receiving terminal as frames for the video call with the receiving terminal through the video call service.

A domain manager configured to manage and/or configure an audio-video (AV) system but not directly participate in networked media transmission or clock synchronization. The domain manager may include a database; an endpoint manager configured to communicate with the database, the endpoint manager being configured to setup and maintain secure connections to and from media devices and controllers; and at least one management module configured to communicate with the database and provide services to the media devices and controllers. In embodiments, the at least one management module may include at least one of a manager for managing credentials and grouping devices into domains, a device directory for managing device registrations and lookup, and an access controller for managing and/or evaluating access control policy.