DIGITAL TELEVISION CHANNEL TRENDING

摘要

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.

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
maintaining a portion of each of a plurality of multimedia programs in a cache; detecting a join request associated with:
a set-top box; anda particular multimedia program; sending an initial portion of the particular multimedia program to the set-top box from the cache; sending a second portion of the particular multimedia program to the set-top box from a replicator; detecting a network management message, associated with the join request, from the set-top box; and incrementing a particular counter indicative of a number of viewers receiving the multimedia program.