Segment boundary obfuscation
AssigneeCable Television Laboratories, Inc.
InventorFrank Sandoval
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and system for obfuscating segment boundary markers, such as but not limited to obfuscating boundary markers used to identify beginning and/or ending boundaries of a sequence of segments forming a programming event. The obfuscation may be achieved by embedding decoy and offset boundary markers within the sequence of segments.
Claims20
A method of identifying segment boundaries for a sequence of segments forming a programming event transported within a transport stream, the method comprising:
- embedding segment messages within each segment of the transport stream used to transport the programming event;
- wherein at least two messages, defined as boundary marker messages, are embedded within each segment to identify segment boundaries, a first one of the boundary marker messages identifying a beginning of the segment and a second one of the boundary marker messages identifying an ending of the segment;
- and
- wherein at least one message, defined as a decoy message, is embedded within each segment to obfuscate at least one of the boundary markers.
A method of limiting a device used to playback content from accurately identifying segment boundaries, the method comprising:
- embedding decoy boundary markers within one or more segments used to define the content, the one or more of the decoy boundary markers indicating a segment ending or beginning other than an actual segment ending or beginning.
A system for supporting digital program insertion (DPI) comprising:
- a transmission source configured to transmit content within a transport stream composed of a sequence of segments where one or more of the segments are identified for DPI, the transmission source embedding boundary markers and decoy boundary markers within one or more of the segments to obfuscate the one or more segments identified for DPI;
- and
- a device configured to process the transport stream for output to a user, the device performing the DPI, the device being configured to accurately identify the one or more segments identified for DPI by differentiating between the boundary markers and the decoy boundary markers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.