US 2009/0158322 A1 · DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM FOR LINKING CONTENT OF VIDEO SIGNALS TO INFORMATION SOURCES

Abstract

A system for product advertising through a telecommunication network is disclosed. The system comprises an advertising engine and an information depot. The advertising engine comprises an information-extraction tool for acquiring product information, an authoring tool for tracking product images appearing in a display of a video recording, and an augmented-display tool for relating product images appearing in a display of a video recording to respective product information. The information depot comprises a global product directory and overlay directories for a set of video recordings. A number of authoring computers connect to the advertising engine of the present invention as well as streaming video sources and advertising databases to generate content of the information depot. The advertising engine distributes the augmented-display tool to viewers' computers which accesses the video-content directory and the product directory to acquire respective overlay directories and associated product data.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system for product advertising comprising:

a computer readable medium, having computer readable instructions stored thereon, when executed by a processor, to form the following:
an advertising engine comprising:
an information-extraction tool for acquiring collective product information, pertinent to a set of products, from product data bases through a network;
an authoring tool for tracking product images appearing in a first display of a specific video recording received from a video source, associating product identifiers to said product images, and producing an overlay directory relating each of selected product images to respective information within said collective product information;
and
an augmented-display tool for tracking said product images appearing in a second display of said specific video recording and displaying selected product information corresponding to a subset of said product images selected by a viewer of said second display;
and
an information depot comprising:
a global product directory storing said collective product information;
a video-source directory providing network addresses of video sources providing video recordings;
and
a video-content directory storing overlay directories of a plurality of video recordings produced by said authoring tool.

9 more elements

A system for collecting and distributing product information through a network, the system comprising:

an overlay server computer comprising:
an information extraction tool for extracting product information, for a set of products, from a plurality of product servers and assembling said product information in a global product directory;
an authoring tool for creating individual overlay directories for a plurality of video recordings acquired from a plurality of video sources, and
assembling said individual overlay directories into a video-content directory;
and
an augmented display tool for displaying information relevant to products, belonging to said set of products, appearing in displaying a selected video recording from among said plurality of video recordings;
and
a plurality of authoring computers each storing thereon a copy of said authoring tool;
wherein each of said individual overlay directories comprises a computer readable medium storing the following:
a time instant and spatial position of each appearance of a particular product in a display of a respective video recording;
and
information relevant to said particular product.

9 more elements

A method for product advertising through a network, the method comprising steps of:

creating a list of product identifiers of a set of products;
creating a list of video-recording identifiers of a set of video recordings;
acquiring network addresses of product servers, each product server providing information relevant to at least one of said set of products;
acquiring collective product information relevant to said set of products from said product servers through said network;
sending said collective product information through said network to an overlay server;
acquiring network address of video sources collectively providing said set of video recordings;
requesting and individually receiving said set of video recordings;
and
for each video recording:
producing a display on a computer screen;
pointing to images in said display corresponding to said set of products;
formulating a tracking record comprising a product identifier, a pointing time, and spatial coordinates for each image;
and
sending said tracking record to said overlay server through said network.

11 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Distributed system for linking content of video signals to information sources

Life of this patent

Distributed system for linking content of video signals to information sources

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20