Apparatus and methods for providing enhanced consumer access to information sources and controllable entities. An Access device can be a stand alone device such as a DVD player in which the DVD disk contains the back-end information network. Other Access devices obtain the back-end information network from remote sources. By way of a specific example, the consumer can then view a game and interactively select every television camera located at the game venue.

A playing control method and a terminal are provided. The method includes the following. A playing control instruction carrying a device identifier of a playing device is acquired. A content input port and a power output port that are integrated in a control terminal and correspond to the device identifier are opened. Power output ports of the control terminal other than the power output port corresponding to the device identifier and a power output port coupled to a display terminal are closed, multimedia contents via the content input port corresponding to the device identifier are received, and the multimedia contents are transmitted to the display terminal for output and display.

A system for acquiring digital content identified in a celebrity content list without disclosing the list, includes a database storing at least one celebrity content list, the list being associated with a particular celebrity and identifying digital content selected by the celebrity. A request is received from a user's computing device for a specific quantity of content associated with a particular celebrity content list and the particular celebrity content list is retrieved from the database. A list is received from the user's computing device identifying existing user content user stored on or otherwise accessible by the user's computing device. The existing user content is compared to the particular celebrity content list to identify any missing content absent from the existing user content. The specific quantity of missing content is transmitted to the user's computing device without the user viewing the particular celebrity content list.

Methods, systems, and machine-readable media for adapting content composites to device operations of an endpoint media device are disclosed. Blockchain data associated with a blockchain address may be processed by one or more processing devices. The blockchain data and/or the blockchain address may be mapped by the one or more processing devices to a first endpoint media device. Based at least in part on the blockchain data, a first content composite may be identified by one or more processing devices for delivery from a content provider system via one or more networks to the first endpoint media device. Transmission of the first content composite may be caused where, consequent to delivery of the first content composite to the first endpoint media device, the first endpoint media device or a second endpoint media device performs at least one operation relating to the first content composite.

Methods for managing digital content include authenticating a user account identifier from a client device over a computer network, registering a telephone number for at least one wireless mobile device in a registry identified with the user account based on the authenticating, as a pre-authorized identifier for accessing digital content licensed for use with the client device. The methods include maintaining a library of digital content identified with the user account for access by the at least one wireless mobile device, and initiating streaming of the digital video content to the at least one wireless mobile device without requiring user authentication from the at least one wireless mobile device, based on the registering of the telephone number as the pre-authorized identifier. An apparatus for performing the method comprises a processor coupled to a memory, the memory holding instructions for performing steps of the method as summarized above.

In some aspects, the disclosure is directed to methods and systems for latency-aware social networking. A media stream may be provided to a plurality of client devices, and transmission and processing latencies between each client device and one or more servers may be measured. Client devices may be organized into groups according to latency windows and, in some implementations, numbers of devices. A social networking system may provide real-time chat functionality to grouped client devices. Groups may be dynamically reorganized by latency and number as network and processing latencies change.

Disclosed are some implementations of systems, apparatus, methods and computer program products for customizing and dynamically generating overlay graphical user interfaces (GUIs) within the context of a video streaming environment.

Methods and systems for the efficient and non-redundant transmission of a single video program in multiple frame rates, optionally employing a combination of video coding standards, in a way that is backwards-compatible with legacy receivers only supportive of some subsection of frame rates or of some subsection of video coding standards.

In one aspect, a method includes identifying a group of content-presentation devices that are each tuned to a same first channel and identifying, from the group, (i) a first sub-group of content-presentation devices that each have a respective content-transmission delay that is lower than a threshold delay and (ii) a second sub-group of content-presentation devices that each have a respective content-transmission delay that is greater than or equal to the threshold delay. The method also includes determining that within a predefined time-period, at least a threshold number of content-presentation devices of the first sub-group have changed from the first channel to a same second channel. The method also includes in response to the determining, storing an indication that the second channel is a priority channel for use in performing channel identification when a content-presentation device of the second sub-group has changed channels from the first channel to a new channel.

Methods and apparatus to generate audience measurement data from population sample data having incomplete demographic classifications are disclosed. An example method includes detecting that a number of impressions a time segment of a video occurred based on messages; detecting that no impressions for the time segment of the video were detected by the database proprietor; determining respective percentages of exposures of the video that are attributable to corresponding ones of multiple demographic groups, determining the respective percentages being based on the first demographic information provided by the database proprietor for exposures of other time segments of the video; attributing respective portions of the number of impressions to the demographic groups based on the respective percentages to determine imputed numbers of impressions; generating adjusted numbers of impressions based on the imputed numbers of impressions; and determining ratings information for the video using the adjusted numbers of impressions.