An interactive television program guide system is provided in which a viewer may direct a television to simultaneously display a selected television program and a program guide display. A viewer may use the program guide display to browse available video-on-demand (VOD) while continuing to view a previously selected program in the background. The viewer may browse through video-on-demand programs on the program guide display using a variety of keys on a remote control unit. The viewer may direct the program guide to order a given video-on-demand program/and set a desired broadcast time for that program.

Methods and systems are described for a media guidance application that limits the incentive for authorized users to share content with unauthorized users, while still allowing users to access content virtually anywhere. Specifically, the media guidance application allows an authorized user to receive only a portion of a media asset that he or she is authorized to access on a different device, after a designated time period, and/or when the remaining portion of the media asset is inaccessible.

In one embodiment, a method of generating an electronic program guide for a user of an entertainment system is disclosed. The method includes retrieving, by a user computer in communication with the entertainment system, preference criteria corresponding to one or more user preferences describing payment requirements. The user computer receives a plurality of content listings, each content listing comprising a content title, an indication of a content source, and a payment requirement, and a search query including a content title. The user computer also identifies a subset of the plurality of content listings based on content title and the search query, and ranks each content listing in the subset based on a comparison of the preference criteria and the payment requirement of each content listing in the subset. A content entry in the electronic program guide is created comprising each content listing in the subset in ranked order.

Program information is transmitted and received via a communication line, and a scheduling operation can be performed based on the program information via the communication line. For that purpose, a communication system includes a receiving apparatus, a server, and an information processing apparatus which are configured to transmit data to and receive data from one another via the communication line. The information processing apparatus includes an EPG requester and a display EPG receiver. The server includes an EPG request receiver, an EPG request transmitter, an EPG receiver, an EPG converter, and a display EPG transmitter. The receiving apparatus includes an EPG obtainer, an EPG request acceptor, an EPG extractor, and an EPG transmitter.

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, facilitating access to a synopsis of a missed portion of a media program, identifying subject matter in a segment of content in the media program that has not been presented, determining a particular time for presenting the summary according to the subject matter in the segment of content, and initiating a presentation of the summary at the particular time. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Systems and methods for identifying, assembling, and transmitting content are described in the illustrative context of electronic program guides and program channels. A first system causes an interactive interstitial to be presented on a remote first device of a user in conjunction with a scheduled program. The first system determines if a second device of the user is available to receive an interstitial interaction request. At least partly in response to determining that the second device is available to receive an interstitial interaction request, the interstitial interaction request is presented via a client hosted on the second device. At least partly in response to determining that the user has provided an interaction via the second device, the interaction is stored in memory. Optionally, an interstitial is composed based at least in part on the user interaction. The composed interstitial is optionally displayed via the first device of the user in conjunction with a scheduled program.

Systems and methods are provided herein for displaying recommendations that are temporally relevant to activities of a user and are contextually relevant to a portion of viewed media. This may be accomplished by a media guidance application identifying activities a user has planned, as well as respective times for which each of the plurality of activities was planned to be performed by the user. The media guidance application may filter the activities by determining which of the first plurality of activities has a corresponding respective time that is within a threshold period of time. The media guidance application may then identify characteristics of each filtered activity and of a media asset that the user is consuming at the present moment, and may compute whether the characteristics match. If the characteristics match, the media guidance application may generate for display a recommendation relating to the respective activity.

A transmission method includes generating one or more frames for content transfer using IP (Internet Protocol) packets, and transmitting the one or more generated frames by broadcast. Each of the one or more frames contains a plurality of second transfer units, each of the plurality of second transfer units contains one or more first transfer units, and each of the one or more first transfer units contains at least one of the IP packets. An object IP packet of the IP packets which is stored in a first transfer unit positioned at a head in the one or more frames contains reference clock information that indicates time for reproduction of the content in data structure different from data structure of an MMT (MPEG Media Transport) packet, and header compression processing on the object IP packet is omitted.

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).

Aspects of the disclosure provide methods, apparatuses, and non-transitory computer-readable mediums for receiving media data of media content. One apparatus includes processing circuitry that receives a media presentation description (MPD) file and a session-based description (SBD) file. The processing circuitry determines whether the SBD file includes a starting time attribute indicating a starting time of an SBD timeline of a session. The processing circuitry determines the starting time of the SBD timeline based on the SBD file in response to the SBD file including the starting time attribute. The processing circuitry determines the starting time of the SBD timeline based on the MPD file in response to the SBD file not including the starting time attribute.