Ratings and quality measurements for digital broadcast viewers

A system, comprising:

• a first receive-and-process (RP) system;
• and
• a second RP system, the first RP system and the second RP system each configured to receive a first broadcast stream corresponding to a service, the broadcast stream comprising either a raw Internet protocol (IP) stream or a non-IP stream, the first and second RP systems each further configured to derive a first Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) stream and a second RTP stream, respectively, based on the first broadcast stream, the first RTP stream and the second RTP stream having stream parameters in common, the first and second RP systems each further configured to provide a first RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) report and a second RTCP report, respectively, the first RTCP report based on the derived first RTP stream, the second RTCP report based on the derived second RTP stream, the first and second RTCP reports each comprising information associated with a viewer experience, the respective information having a common benchmark as a basis for comparison, the first and second RTCP reports each further comprising an indication of respective services that are presented to a viewer and the viewer's viewing patterns with regard to the services, wherein the viewing pattern comprises an order of channel changes by the viewer, wherein the order of channel changes comprises information indicating each channel change to and from the service over a defined period of time.

A device, comprising:

• a communications interface configured to provide to plural receive-and-process (RP) systems a first broadcast stream corresponding to a service, the first broadcast stream comprising either a raw Internet protocol (IP) stream or a non-IP stream;
• and
• processing logic configured to:
• receive plural Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) Control Protocol (RTCP) reports from the plural RP systems, the plural RTCP reports correlated to each other and each derived from information in the first broadcast stream, the plural RTCP reports each comprising viewer experience information associated with the respective plural RP systems, the respective viewer experience information having a common benchmark as a basis for comparison, the viewer experience information further comprising:
• an indication of the service that is presented to a viewer,
• the viewer's rating of the service, and
• the viewer's viewing patterns associated with the service, wherein the viewing patterns comprise an order of channel changes by the viewer, wherein the order of channel changes comprises information indicating each channel change to and from the service over a defined period of time;
• compare the received plural RTCP reports;
• and
• provide a result based on the comparison.