An apparatus for receiving a broadcast signal, includes a receiver configured to receive the broadcast signal including physical layer signaling data, signaling data, content data and service guide information, wherein the signaling data is included in a signal frame indicated by the physical layer signaling data, wherein the signaling data includes mapping information between a service and a PLP, and information supporting channel scanning and service acquisition, wherein the service guide information includes a service fragment having information about the broadcast service and a content fragment having information about content data of the broadcast service, wherein the content fragment further includes a content-level PrivateExt element having component information of the content data, wherein the component information includes information for a component in the broadcast service, and wherein the component is one of a video component, an audio component, and a closed caption component (CC).

The disclosure provides a connection allocation method in a media playing process, including: receiving playing requests initiated by a player embedded in a webpage, wherein the player plays media data in the webpage; storing the received playing requests into a buffering queue to queue according to a receiving sequence of the playing requests; and allocating connections to the playing requests in the buffering queue according to an upper limit of the number of concurrent connections usable for the buffering queue and the receiving sequence, wherein the connections are used for the player to request to-be-played media data. The disclosure further provides a media playing device and a storage medium.

One or more computing devices, systems, and/or methods are provided. Event information associated with a plurality of events may be identified. The plurality of events may be associated with first entities corresponding to a first entity type and second entities associated with a second entity type. A first network profile associated with the first entities and the second entities may be generated based upon the event information. An iterative process may be performed to identify a coalition network associated with fraudulent activity. The iterative process may include analyzing the first network profile to identify a first set of entities, of the first entities, that are related to an entity of the second entities, and/or analyzing the first network profile to identify a second set of entities, of the second entities, that are related to the first set of entities. Multiple iterations may be performed to identify the coalition network.

Methods, apparatus, systems, and articles of manufacture are disclosed to generate synthetic respondent level data. Example apparatus disclosed herein include means for generating a synthetic panel corresponding to a duration of time, the means for generating the synthetic panel to: generate a transition matrix corresponding to a first sub-duration of the duration of time and a second sub-duration of the duration of time; generate, based on the transition matrix, a plurality of synthetic panelists and associated viewing data; remove first ones of the synthetic panelists associated with one or more weights that do not satisfy a threshold to generate the synthetic panel corresponding to the duration of time, the synthetic panel representative of audiences of media presented by a plurality of media devices during the duration of time; and generate synthetic respondent level data based on the viewing data associated with remaining second ones of the synthetic panelists.

Methods, apparatus, systems, and articles of manufacture are disclosed to generate synthetic respondent level data. Example apparatus disclosed herein include means for generating a synthetic panel corresponding to a duration of time, the means for generating the synthetic panel to: generate a transition matrix corresponding to a first sub-duration of the duration of time and a second sub-duration of the duration of time; generate, based on the transition matrix, a plurality of synthetic panelists and associated viewing data; remove first ones of the synthetic panelists associated with one or more weights that do not satisfy a threshold to generate the synthetic panel corresponding to the duration of time, the synthetic panel representative of audiences of media presented by a plurality of media devices during the duration of time; and generate synthetic respondent level data based on the viewing data associated with remaining second ones of the synthetic panelists.

Systems and methods for automatically generating top level index files for use in adaptive bitrate streaming in accordance with embodiments of the invention are disclosed. One embodiment of the method of the invention includes receiving a request from a playback device at a playback server, where the request identifies a piece of content, retrieving a list of assets associated with the identified piece of content using the playback server, filtering the list of assets using at least one predetermined criterion using the playback server, generating a top level index file describing each asset in the filtered list of assets using the playback server, and sending the top level index file to the playback device using the playback server.

In the field of communications technologies, disclosed are a program playing method and apparatus, to resolve problems of relatively high costs of an internet protocol television (IPTV) operator and relatively high costs for subscribing to and maintaining an IPTV service by a user. In the method, a communications device receives a program playing request message sent by using a first transmission protocol. The communications device determines a corresponding target program channel based on a media file identifier included in the program playing request message, and may send a data stream request message to an IPTV platform by using a second transmission protocol. The communications device may send, by using the first transmission protocol, a received data stream to a playing device for play.

Example techniques relate to cloud queue tombstones. An example implementation may involve a computing system receiving instructions to remove a particular media item from a playback queue. Based on the instructions, the computing system removes the particular media item from the playback queue and adds, to the playback queue, a tombstone indicator indicating that the particular media item has been removed from the playback queue. The computing system receives, from the media playback system, a request for a window of one or more media items from the playback queue. Based on the request, the computing system sends, to the media playback system, data representing a particular window of media items from the playback queue, wherein the particular window includes the tombstone indicator. The computing system detects a given tombstone removal trigger from among multiple tombstone removal triggers and based on the detecting, removes the tombstone indicator from the playback queue.

A video-on-demand server, having a plurality of audiovisual assets stored in association therewith, and an application server module, are interconnected with a first group of consumer premises equipment (CPE) associated with a first group of subscribers and a second group of CPE associated with a second (different) group of subscribers, via a video content network. The application server module, the first group of CPE, and the second group of CPE are cooperatively configured to prepare a first video-on-demand catalog comprising a first group of the audiovisual assets and a second video-on-demand catalog comprising a second (different) group of the audiovisual assets. The application server module, the first group of CPE, and the second group of CPE are further cooperatively configured to make the first video-on-demand catalog available to the first group of subscribers and to make the second video-on-demand catalog available to the second group of subscribers.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to monitor a media presentation are disclosed. An example method includes in response to receipt of a media identifier, extracting, by executing an instruction with a processor, a timestamp from the received media identifier. A time of receipt of the media identifier is determined. A difference between the time of receipt of the media identifier and the timestamp from the received media identifier is determined. A time shifted viewing code is calculated based on the difference The time shifted viewing code is transmitted to a media monitor that transmitted the media identifier, the time shifted viewing code to be reported when the media monitor reports monitoring information.