Methods and apparatus for monitoring and/or collecting viewership statistics

摘要

Methods and apparatus for collecting program viewership information are described. A viewership monitoring module is provided access to decrypted program content allowing program information to be recovered without having to capture output program content using a microphone or camera. The monitoring module is loaded onto a secure device, e.g., a home network device, such as a router used to deliver content to a secure playback device. Alternatively the secure device which performs the monitoring maybe the secure playback device. Since a user of the secure device or a company implementing the viewership monitoring process loads the monitoring module onto the secure device, the network used to deliver the secure content need not be informed of which network customers are contributing to the viewership information which is being collected.

主权项

1. A method of collecting presentation information, comprising:
receiving, at a secure device, encrypted program content including audio or video information identifying the program content; operating the secure device to decrypt the encrypted program content to produce decrypted digital program content; operating the secure device to process the decrypted digital program content to recover the information identifying the program content; receiving default viewer information corresponding to a playback device prior to the playback device outputting the program content; and generating viewership statistics from the recovered information identifying the program content, said step of generating viewership information including:
including in said generated viewership information a default number of viewers corresponding to the playback device in the absence of a user providing viewership information corresponding to said program content.