Granted Patent B2

US 12,470,774 · App. 18/230,363 · Granted Nov 11, 2025

Inventors: Dean Kenneth Jackson (Pittsburgh, PA); Daniel Victor Klein (Pittsburgh, PA)

Assignee: Google LLC

H04N21/47H04N21/44008H04N21/44222H04N21/44226H04N21/4622H04N21/47214H04N21/47217H04N21/4755H04N21/4882H04N21/8456

Abstract

Claims (51)

1 . A method for presenting media content, the method comprising:

causing, using a hardware processor, media content to be presented on a display;

identifying, using the hardware processor, one or more entities within the media content;

causing, using the hardware processor, a guide to be presented on the display, wherein the guide indicates when each of the one or more entities appears in the media content;

receiving, using the hardware processor, a selection of a listed item of the guide, wherein the listed item indicates that a first entity appears in a first portion of the media content;

determining the first entity in the media content based at least in part on a user playback action of a plurality of user playback actions that is received on a user device associated with the display during presentation of the first entity;

providing a plurality of available actions in association with the first entity;

determining an action to be performed that is selected from the plurality of available actions in association with the first entity based on the user playback action, wherein the action includes causing an alert to be presented;

associating the first entity with the action from the plurality of available actions;

determining that a viewer is interested in the first entity; and

in response to receiving the selection of the listed item, skipping, using the hardware processor, to the first portion of the media content where the first entity appears and causing the first portion of the media content to be presented on the display.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the guide indicates which scenes of the media content that each of the one or more entities appears in.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:

in response to detecting the first entity within the media content, presenting a skip action that, upon selection, causes the media content to be skipped ahead of the first portion of the media content that does not contain the first entity to a second portion that contains the first entity.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the method further comprises, in response to determining that the skip action has been selected, causing the media content to be skipped ahead to the second portion of the media content that contains the first entity.

5 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the method further comprises associating the first entity with the skip action.

6 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the first entity is a character that the viewer is interested in based on a user playback action that is detected when the character is being presented in the media content.

7 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the method further comprises:

identifying the first entity in second media content while first media content is being presented; and

presenting the skip action in response to identifying the first entity in the second media content.

8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein a character in the second media content is detected using facial recognition.

9 . The method of claim 7 , wherein the method further comprises determining a duration of time until the first entity is to be presented in the second media content.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the method further comprises causing the alert to be presented that identifies the first entity in the second media content and the duration of time until the first entity is to be presented in the second media content.

11 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the skip action is presented on a user device other than the display.

12 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the second portion of the media content is stored in a buffer associated with the display.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises determining whether the first portion of the media content to be skipped contains an advertisement.

14 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises determining a second entity that a viewer is not interested in, wherein a skip action is presented that, upon selection, causes the media content to be skipped ahead of a portion of the media content that contains the second entity in response to detecting the second entity.

15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the guide includes a list of frequently shown entities appearing in the media content.

16 . A system for presenting media content, the system comprising:

a hardware processor that:

causes media content to be presented on a display;

identifies one or more entities within the media content;

causes a guide to be presented on the display, wherein the guide indicates when each of the one or more entities appears in the media content;

receives a selection of a listed item of the guide, wherein the listed item indicates that a first entity appears in a first portion of the media content;

determines the first entity in the media content based at least in part on a user playback action of a plurality of user playback actions that is received on a user device associated with the display during presentation of the first entity;

provides a plurality of available actions in association with the first entity;

determines an action to be performed that is selected from the plurality of available actions in association with the first entity based on the user playback action, wherein the action includes causing an alert to be presented;

associates the first entity with the action from the plurality of available actions;

determines that a viewer is interested in the first entity; and

in response to receiving the selection of the listed item, skips to the first portion of the media content where the first entity appears and causes the first portion of the media content to be presented on the display.

17 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing computer executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method for presenting media content, the method comprising:

causing media content to be presented on a display;

identifying one or more entities within the media content;

causing a guide to be presented on the display, wherein the guide indicates when each of the one or more entities appears in the media content;

receiving a selection of a listed item of the guide, wherein the listed item indicates that a first entity appears in a first portion of the media content;

determining the first entity in the media content based at least in part on a user playback action of a plurality of user playback actions that is received on a user device associated with the display during presentation of the first entity;

providing a plurality of available actions in association with the first entity;

determining an action to be performed that is selected from the plurality of available actions in association with the first entity based on the user playback action, wherein the action includes causing an alert to be presented;

associating the first entity with the action from the plurality of available actions;

determining that a viewer is interested in the first entity; and

in response to receiving the selection of the listed item, skipping to the first portion of the media content where the first entity appears and causing the first portion of the media content to be presented on the display.

Assignments (2)

Continuity (7)

References Cited (103)