Loading patent…
AssigneeAT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
InventorsDonald Lewis Randolph, Bradley C. Griner, Jeffrey Walter Zimmerman
Estimating the term…
Channel trending, including determining a number of viewers watching a multimedia program, is achieved in a digital television network. Cached multimedia frames that correspond to portions of the multimedia program are maintained, for example, on a device located on an edge (i.e., in a network edge device) of the digital television network. In response to a request from a client device (e.g., a set-top box) to receive the multimedia program, cached multimedia frames are fed from the edge device to the client device. Upon a seamless transfer or handoff resulting in a simulcast replicator or multicast replicator providing further portions of the multimedia program, a signal (e.g., a simple network management protocol TRAP statement) is sent to a viewership statistic server for incrementing a counter.
A method of tracking a number of viewers of a multimedia program, the method comprising:
A set-top box enabled to provide an identity of a multimedia program to a digital television network, wherein the set-top box is configured to:
A computer program product stored on computer readable media, the computer program product comprising instructions for:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.