Methods and apparatus to monitor media presentations are disclosed. Example methods disclosed herein include presenting information via a display of a media device, the information indicating that monitor software in the media device can be enabled, the monitor software to monitor media presented by the media device, the monitor software to be disabled by default. Disclosed example methods also include detecting a first user input that is to authorize the monitor software in the media device to be enabled, and in response to detection of the first user input: (i) enabling the monitor software in the media device to generate and report at least one of video fingerprints, audio fingerprints, video watermarks or audio watermarks representative of media presented by the media device, and (ii) transmitting, via a network interface, a notification to a remote monitoring entity to indicate that the monitor software in the media device has been enabled.

A method provides for delivering video content from a server to a plurality of media devices is disclosed that distributes accurately excess bandwidth. The method includes: determining, by the server, the bandwidth to allocate to each of the plurality of media devices using a hypertext transfer protocol-based live streaming client model or a need parameter vector and/or measured bandwidth limitations associated with each of the plurality of media devices and providing the allocated bandwidth to each of the plurality of media devices, wherein the video content is transmitted in a plurality of segments from the server, and wherein each segment is transmitted at a bitrate that may vary from segment to segment.

Disclosed herein are a method of providing advertisements without combining broadcast contents with advertisements, and a terminal performing the method. The terminal carried by a viewer checks a viewing condition of the viewer based on a beacon signal transmitted from a viewing device, and a separate service server provides a targeted advertisement to the terminal by using the viewing condition checked by the terminal.

Correlated quality-of-experience (QoE) and latency measures are generated at a plurality of monitoring points along a multimedia delivery chain including multiple video operations. At each of the plurality of monitoring points, an absolute QoE measure defined on a human perceptual quality scale for media content is computed, and one or more of content extraction or feature extraction on the media content are performed. To a common middleware from each of the plurality of monitoring points, the respective QoE measure and results of the one or more of content extraction or feature extraction are transmitted. Computing and updating an absolute QoE measure for each of the plurality of monitoring points is performed. Computing and updating latencies between multiple monitoring points at the middleware using the results from each of the plurality of monitoring points is also performed.

A method is provided for streaming transcoded HLS video from a video asset to allow a minimum startup delay time. A method includes pre-transcoding a first number of the HLS chunks. Then, once a request is received from a remote HLS client for the HLS video asset, transmitting a number of the pre-transcoded chunks to the remote HLS player. The pre-transcoded chunks are transmitted during a startup period until real-time transcoded chunks can be received and processed by the remote HLS player at a time position to allow seamless transition from the pre-transcoded chunks.

A system and method for transferring control of media playback between electronic devices. Playback of media content is initiating at a source device and peer-to-peer device pairing is established with a destination device. Media content from the source device is streamed to the destination device and a determination of whether to transfer media playback control to the destination device is made based on characteristics of the media content. The control of media playback may be transferred to the destination device based on the destination device having a local copy of the streaming media content, a playlist with similar characteristics to the streaming media content, a local media content having similar characteristics to the streaming media content, or a local playlist similar to the playlist from the source device. The peer-to-peer device pairing is terminated when media playback control is transferred, thereby preserving battery and processing power to the source device.

Systems and methods for controlling multi-site media playback systems include, among other features, a computing system (i) receiving, from a first media playback device connected to a first network, a first registration message, (ii) in response to receiving the first registration message, assigning a system identifier and a first subsystem identifier to the first media playback device, (iii) receiving, from a second media playback device connected to the first network, a second registration message, (iv) in response to receiving the second registration message, assigning the system identifier and the first subsystem identifier to the second media playback device, (v) determining that the second media playback device is disconnected from the first network and connected to a second network, and (vi) in response to determining that the second media playback device is connected to the second network, assigning a second subsystem identifier to the second media playback device.

A method for transmitting a content by a terminal is provided. The method includes sending a request for multi-point transmission for the content to a display device, receiving information about a first transmission rate between the display device and an access point (AP) from the display device, determining a first content distribution ratio for the display device and a second content distribution ratio for the terminal based on a demanded transmission rate for transmission of the content and the first transmission rate, sending information about at least one of the first content distribution ratio and the second content distribution ratio to the display device, receiving a second content portion corresponding to the second content distribution ratio of the content from a content server, and sending the second content portion to the display device.

A content viewing method uses a viewing system including a content distribution server distributing contents, a mobile information terminal, and a viewing device reproducing a content. The mobile information terminal transmits user identification information and a user password to the content distribution server. The content distribution server authenticates the mobile information terminal based on the user identification information and the user password. The mobile information terminal transmits an account issue request requesting an account for reproducing a desired content to the content distribution server. The content distribution server issues the account based on the account issue request and transmits the account to the mobile information terminal. The mobile information terminal stores the account. The mobile information terminal transmits the account by short-range wireless communication. The viewing device stores the account received by short-range wireless communication. The viewing device reproduces the desired content using the stored account.

The setting device includes a communication device and a processing device. The communication device communicates with the electronic apparatuses. The processing device transmits first configuration information representing a fixed first configuration used to connect one of the electronic apparatuses to a network to the electronic apparatus with the communication device taking detection of the electronic apparatus by the communication device as a trigger, and then makes the electronic apparatus store the first configuration information. Further, the processing device transmits second configuration information representing a fixed second configuration which is different from the first configuration and which is used to connect the other of the electronic apparatuses to the network to the electronic apparatus with the communication device taking detection of the electronic apparatus by the communication device as a trigger, and then makes the electronic apparatus store the second configuration information after transmitting the first configuration information.