Items of video content offered for viewing on a video-on-demand (VOD) platform of a digital TV service provider are each assigned a respective title and hierarchical address corresponding to hierarchically-arranged categories and subcategories within which the title for the video content is to be categorized. The title is listed in a location of an electronic program guide (EPG) using the same categories and subcategories as its hierarchical address. Any TV subscriber can access the EPG and navigate through its categories and subcategories to find a title for viewing on the TV. The EPG dynamically adjust its display listings of each level of categories, subcategories, and titles in order to minimize the number of remote control keypresses needed for a viewer to navigate to a title of interest. In one basic form, the EPG display is reordered by listing more frequently visited categories or subcategories first, and other less frequently visited categories or subcategories lower on the listing or out-of-sight on another page of the display.

A digital broadcast receiver for receiving a broadcast signal, includes a tuner configured to receive the broadcast signal including service data in a broadcast signal and application signaling information, wherein the application signaling information includes a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of an entry page of a broadcaster application for the digital broadcast receiver, a cache configured to store a content for the broadcaster application and a processor configured to launch the broadcaster application based on the application signaling information, wherein the entry page of the broadcaster application is loaded based on the URL, and the URL is used to point to a server.

Techniques are described for expanding and/or improving the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 television protocol in robustly delivering the next generation broadcast television services. When automatically switching from presenting a service on a first frequency to a second frequency such as when a mobile receiver is moving through a boundary region between two broadcasters, the current broadcaster application is notified and depending on the context, may continue executing or send data to the new broadcaster application.

Methods and systems for storage and playback of broadcast media received via a local digital video recording (DVR) system. The system includes the DVR system configured to receive the broadcast media and upload the broadcast media to a storage server over a network. The DVR system divides the broadcast media content into blocks and assigns a unique block ID to each block based on the block data. Prior to uploading each block to the storage server, the unique block ID is sent to the storage server, which only uploads and stored the block if a duplicate block has not already been stored on the storage device, minimizing network demand. A transcoding server coupled to the storage server transcodes the broadcast media content for streaming over the network.

A data transmission and reception method for a sink device which is connected to a plurality of source devices by means of a high definition multimedia interface (HDMI), according to an embodiment of the present invention, comprises the steps of: receiving an allocation of an internet protocol (IP) address; transmitting device information about a sink device to a control point through a network; and transmitting service information about a supportable service by the sink device to the control point through the network.

Methods, systems, and media for generating an advertisement from a video stream are provided. In accordance with some embodiments, the method comprises: receiving, from a first user device, advertisement parameters associated with an advertisement campaign for placing an advertisement based on the advertisement parameters, wherein the advertisement parameters include one or more keywords; associating the advertisement parameters with an identifier of the first user device; receiving, from the first user device, a live video stream; receiving, from a second user device, a request to present an advertisement; identifying the live video stream based at least in part on the one or more keywords; generating the advertisement using the live video stream and the advertisement parameters; and causing the advertisement to be presented on the second user device as the advertisement.

An interactive video distribution system and video player are described. A client server arrangement may be used for providing a video player and video content to a client device. The video player may display navigation images enabling navigation to specific portions of the video content by activating a corresponding navigation image. The video player may also enable the sharing of a segment of the video with other video players, enabling the video players to play the streamed segment of the video without having to play the entire video, thereby reducing network bandwidth usage. The video player may be embeddable. The server may associate searchable tags with respective video segments.

The disclosed technology relates to methods, devices, systems and computer program products that facilitate access to metadata associated with a content. In one example, a method is described that includes receiving a multimedia content at a receiver device, extracting a watermark message from a first segment of the multimedia content, using at least a portion of the first watermark message to obtain additional information regarding the first segment of the multimedia content that includes the first watermark message, and associating and storing one or more values of the first watermark message and the additional information. The method further includes repeating the above operations to extract additional watermark messages from additional segments of the content and to form a table or array of items that can be accessed by specifying the one or more values of the first watermark message or one or more values of the additional watermark messages.

In accordance with a method for presenting home screen shortcuts, a computer system is coupled to a plurality of media content providers and obtains a respective media application for each of the media content providers. Content is provided for display on the television screen from a first media content provider via a first media application. The computer system obtains a plurality of shortcuts corresponding to a home screen user interface, and the plurality of shortcuts includes one or more media shortcuts and a search shortcut. The home screen user interface is displayed concurrently with the provided content on the television screen, and the one or more media shortcuts and the search shortcut are concurrently displayed on the home screen user interface. In response to selection of the search shortcut, the computer system initiates a shortcut search for one or more additional shortcuts for display on the home screen user interface.

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.