Apparatus for and a method of providing content data
View Patent ↗Advertising data is incorporated into predictively encoded, for example MPEG encoded, digital video representing a video feature such as a film or movie or television show or program or video game by re-encoding one or more sequences or groups of pictures of the video feature with reference to at least one frame of advertising data representing at least one advertisement so that the sequence of the video feature cannot be decoded without decoding the advertising data, thereby making it difficult, when the video feature is delivered to an end user by, for example, downloading or streaming over a network, for the end user to skip or delete the at least one advertisement from the video feature, without detrimentally affecting the video feature.
1. Apparatus for providing encoded content data, the apparatus comprising:
a content data receiver adapted to receive content data comprising a first sequence of frames defining a group of pictures and having a first content data frame which is independently encoded and a series of further content data frames encoded with reference to the first content data frame;
an advertising data receiver adapted to receive advertising data comprising a second sequence of advertising data frames having a first advertising data frame which is independently encoded and a series of further advertising data frames encoded with reference to the first advertising data frame;
a decoder to decode the series of further content data frames to provide a series of decoded further content data frames; and
an encoder coupled to the data receiver and adapted to encode the series of decoded further content data frames with reference to at least one of the advertising data frames, wherein the independently encoded first advertising data frame immediately follows the independently encoded first content data frame, and wherein all differentially or predictively encoded frames, but no independently encoded frames, of the content data group of pictures following a predictively encoded frame of the second sequence are re-encoded with reference to the predictively encoded frame of the second sequence, and wherein a player of the encoded data frames cannot decode the first sequence of frames without decoding at least one frame of the advertising data.
2. Apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein each of the first and second sequences of frames comprises at least one bidirectionally predictively encoded frame encoded with respect to at least one earlier frame and at least one later frame of the same sequence.
3. Apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the video content data and the advertising data are encoded using one of the following encoding processes: MPEG2 (& DVD), DivX, Xvid, H.263 or H.264/MPEG4-10, MPEG4-2, VC-1 (SMPTE 412M or WMV9), Real Media video, Real Media variable bitrates (RMVB) video.
4. Apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the series of further content data frames comprises a repeating pattern of P- and B-frames.
5. Apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the series of further content data frames comprises a repeating pattern of P- and B-frames and the series of further advertising data frames comprises the same pattern.
6. A method of providing encoded data to be decoded for playing by a decoder of a player, the method comprising:
combining content data and advertising data; and
producing modified content data by encoding at least part of the content data defining a group of pictures with reference to at least some of the advertising data and wherein all differentially or predictively encoded frames, but no independently encoded frames, of the content data group of pictures following a predictively encoded frame of the advertising data are re-encoded with reference to the predictively encoded frame of the advertising data, and wherein a player of the modified content data cannot decode that part of the modified content data without decoding at least one frame of the advertising data.
7. A method according to claim 6 , wherein the data is digital video data.
8. A method according to claim 6 , wherein the content data and advertising data are already encoded and the method further comprises decoding the at least part of the content data prior to encoding the at least part of the content data with reference to at least some of the advertising data.
9. A method according to claim 8 , wherein:
the content data comprises a first sequence of frames having a first content data frame which is independently encoded and a series of further content data frames encoded with reference to the first content data frame;
the advertising data comprises a second sequence of advertising data frames having a first advertising data frame which is independently encoded and a series of further advertising data frames encoded with reference to the first advertising data frame;
the method further comprises decoding the series of further content data frames to provide a series of decoded further content data frames; and
producing modified content data by encoding at least part of the content data comprises re-encoding the series of decoded further content data frames with reference to at least one of the advertising data frames wherein the independently encoded first advertising data frame immediately follows the independently encoded first content data frame.
10. A method according to claim 6 , wherein each of the first and second sequences of frames comprises at least one bidirectionally predictively encoded frame encoded with respect to at least one earlier frame and at least one later frame of the same sequence.
11. A method according to claim 9 , wherein the content data and the advertising data are encoded using one of the following encoding processes: MPEG2 (& DVD), DivX, Xvid, H.263 or H.264/MPEG4-10, MPEG4-2, VC-1 (SMPTE 412M or WMV9), Real Media video, Real Media variable bit rate (RMVB) video.
12. A method according to claim 9 , wherein the series of further content data frames comprises a repeating pattern of P- and B-frames and the series of further advertising data frames comprises the same pattern.
13. A method according to claim 9 , further comprising delivering a video feature incorporating the modified content data to an end user by at least one of: transmission; supply over a network; on a recording medium.
14. A processor-readable non-transitory storage medium storing processor instructions to program a processor:
to receive video content data comprising a first sequence of frames defining a group of pictures and having an independently encoded first content data frame and a series of further content data frames encoded with reference to the first content data frame;
to receive video advertising data comprising a sequence of advertising data frames having an independently encoded first advertising data frame and a series of further advertising data frames encoded with reference to the first advertising data frame;
to decode the series of further content data frames to provide a series of decoded further content data frames; and
to encode the series of decoded further content data frames with reference to at least one of the advertising data frames wherein the independently encoded first advertising frame immediately follows the independently coded first content data frame, and wherein all differentially or predictively encoded frames, but no independently encoded frames, of the content data group of pictures following a predictively encoded frame of the sequence of advertising data frames are re-encoded with reference to the predictively encoded frame of the sequence of advertising data frames, and wherein a player of the encoded data frames cannot decode and thus play the first sequence of frames without decoding at least one frame of the advertising data.