Techniques for intelligent video ad insertion

In a household home entertainment system comprised of a display device for receiving and displaying video programming received from a video content provider, and a computing system for controlling at selected times the source of the video content to be displayed, and particularly the source and nature of advertising content, a computer program product comprising a computer readable medium for carrying executable instructions for implementing a method for controlling and determining locally at the home entertainment system the advertising content to be displayed from time to time for one or more users of the home entertainment system when viewing video programming received from a video content provider, and wherein the method is comprised of steps for:

• storing at the computing system criteria for selecting some advertising content and not other, the criteria being based on factors provided from any one or any combination of i) a user profile for one of the one or more users viewing the video programming, ii) a video programming content provider, iii) a third party operator, and iv) an advertiser;
• receiving at the home entertainment system advertising content from an ad source, and subsequently deciding whether to prefilter at least some of the received advertising content using the stored criteria, and thereafter storing at the computing system any received and prefiltered advertising content;
• receiving and displaying at the display device video programming provided by a video content provider;
• and
• using the stored criteria, and while the video programming is being displayed, the computing system detecting a predefined triggering event, and then selecting advertising content to be displayed and displaying it by performing one or both of i) inserting from advertising content stored locally at the computing system at least some of the selected advertising content into the video programming being displayed, and ii) using the stored criteria at the computing system, screening advertising content included with the video programming to display some but less than all of the included advertising content.