JPH0951522A - Advertising video delivery method - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Purpose] To enhance the advertising effect of advertising video in a video delivery system. [Configuration] When a video data delivery request is made from any of the clients, an advertiser of the video data is identified by a video information management table 150 provided in the server 100, and the advertisement information provided for each client. Management table 155
By detecting whether there is an advertisement video specified in advance for the client by the advertiser, and by distributing the detected video to the client instead of the advertisement video attached to the video data, if any. , Change ads for each client. It is also possible for the viewer to view this advertisement video in advance, and in that case, a flag of already viewed is set in the advertisement information management table 155, and when the above-mentioned video data is viewed, the client can view the advertisement video. Exempt.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention has a video delivery server for storing and delivering a large amount of video data, and a client for receiving video from the video delivery server, and various programs according to requests from the client. The present invention relates to a method of delivering an advertisement image in an interactive image delivery system for delivering an image.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In an interactive video delivery system, it is possible to send a request from a client to a delivery server, which is impossible with a conventional television broadcasting system.
That is, the viewer can watch the video of the desired content at the desired time.

In terms of hardware, the interactive video delivery system is composed of a video server that stores and delivers compressed digital video, a client terminal that receives the video, and a network that connects the two. For example, Asai et al., "Study of video storage method in video media" (IEICE Technical Report IE94-1)
Issue 3, 1994.5). The video server stores a large amount of video information on the hard disk, reads the video information into the main memory in response to a viewing request from the client, and sends the video data to the network stably at a rate of 30 frames per second. To do. The client terminal stores the video data received via the network in the main memory and inputs it to the decoder of the compressed video data at regular time intervals. Furthermore, the client terminal receives a request such as a pause or rewind of the video input by the viewer, and sends it to the network as a processing command to the video server. A network is generally composed of a plurality of levels, and an optical fiber cable is used for a backbone line and a coaxial cable is used for a subscriber line. Video data from the server to the terminal and various requests from the terminal to the server flow on the network.

In terms of services, the interactive video delivery system is expected to be application software for video-on-demand, catalog shopping, public information services and the like. One of the issues common to these services is the charging method. The breakdown of charges in the video delivery system can be roughly divided into the cost of using the hardware system and the cost of using the information itself distributed on the video delivery system. Regarding the former, the system is complicated and huge, and it is difficult for the viewers to share and share all costs. Regarding the latter, the existence of a fund provider at the time of producing information is indispensable, and an advertisement is attached to the produced information as a compensation of the fund provision.

[0005]

As described above, an efficient advertisement delivery method in consideration of interactivity has not been studied for delivery of advertisement video data, which is essential for the video delivery system. It is desirable to realize effective advertising that makes the most of the features of the interactive video delivery system.

An object of the present invention is to provide an advertisement video delivery method capable of providing different advertisements for each viewer.

A more specific object of the present invention is to provide an advertisement video delivery method capable of providing an advertisement having a high advertising effect.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an advertisement video delivery method which enables a user to view an advertisement with a high degree of freedom.

[0009]

In order to solve the above problems, according to the first invention of the present application, when video data delivery is requested from any one of a plurality of video receiving clients, storage in the video server is performed. The advertisement video data to be added to the requested video data is selected from a plurality of advertisement video data stored in the device depending on the video receiving client, and the selected advertisement video data is the requested video data. Is delivered from the delivery server to the specific video receiving client as advertisement video data for.

More preferably, in the selection, the advertisement video data to be added to the requested video data is selected depending on the video data and the video receiving client.

More specifically, advertisement information that is designated in advance by a predetermined advertisement provider corresponding to the requested video data and that specifies the advertisement video data to be distributed to each of the group of video clients is displayed. It is stored in advance, and in the selection, it is determined whether or not the advertisement information specifies the advertisement video data to be added to the requested video data for the specific video receiving client, and one of the advertisements is determined. When the video data is designated for the specific video receiving client, the designated advertising video data is selected.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, it is possible to deliver different advertisement images to each viewer. In a more specific aspect of the first invention of the present application, the advertisement image selected by the advertisement provider can be delivered to each viewer selected by the advertisement provider, and the advertisement effect can be enhanced.

In the second invention of the present application, when it is requested by the video receiving client to view the advertisement video data before the distribution of any video data requested to be delivered by any of the video receiving clients, The advertisement video data is delivered from the video server to the video reception client, the video data is delivered from the video server to the video reception client after the delivery, and the advertisement video data is not delivered during the delivery of the video data.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, if the viewer desires, the advertisement can be viewed before the video data is delivered.

Further, according to another invention of the present application, it is possible to set the time for delivering the advertisement video data to the time specified by the user.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A disk array according to the present invention will be described below in more detail with reference to some embodiments shown in the drawings. In the following, the same reference numerals represent the same or similar ones.

<First Embodiment> First, the configuration of a video delivery system for realizing the advertisement delivery method of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. The video delivery system is a client-server system including a video delivery server 100, a video reception client 140, and a network 130 connecting the two.
The video delivery server 100 includes a CPU 101 that is a central processing unit, a network interface adapter (NIA) 104 that controls input / output with a network,
An input / output controller (IOC) 105 for controlling input / output with the magnetic disk 106, and a computer system to which a main memory 103 is connected via an internal data bus 102. Specifically, a workstation using a RISC processor or the like. Will be realized in. In the main memory 103,
An operating system 123 that realizes the basic control functions of the computer system and programs 120, 121, 122 for video delivery processing are stored. Further, in the main memory 103, a video information management table 150, an advertisement information management table 155, an advertisement delivery timing detection program 116, and a delivery advertisement determination program 118, which are the features of this embodiment, are stored.

The video receiving client 140 is a CPU 1
41 and NIA 142, a decoder (DEC) 143 that decodes digitally compressed video data, an IOC 144 that manages a keyboard 172 that inputs an instruction from a viewer and a video name, and a main memory 146 has an internal data bus 145.
Is a computer system connected via a computer, and is specifically realized by a personal computer, a television having a set-top box, or the like. Decoder 14
The video data expanded by 3 is displayed on the display 144. In the main memory 146, an operating system 123 that realizes the basic control functions of the computer system, and programs 147 and 1 for video reception processing are provided.
48 is stored. The network 130 is a data transfer path for transferring video data and control data, and is specifically realized by a high bandwidth network using an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) communication method.

The video data is compressed using an image compression technique such as MPEG1 and stored in advance on the magnetic disk 106 in the video delivery server. The viewer activates the video transmission request program 147 on the main memory 146 of the video receiving client, and sends the name of the video data to be viewed to the video delivery server 100 via the network 130. Upon receiving the delivery request, the client management program 120 in the main storage of the video delivery server 100 activates the video delivery control program 121. The video delivery control program 121 activates the video read control program 122, reads out the video data requested to be delivered from the magnetic disk 106, and sends it to the video receiving client 140 via the network 130. The video reception client 140 receives the video data by the video reception program 148 and reproduces the requested video on the display 144 via the decoder 143. For simplification of description, it is assumed in FIG. 1 that each of the video delivery server and the client connected to the network is one, and the number of magnetic disks for storing video data in the video delivery server is one. Multiple units may be used.

The video delivery server also delivers advertisement video in addition to video data. The advertising video is video data in a broad sense, and the video delivery server 10 is the same as normal video data.
It is stored in the magnetic disk 106 in 0 and is delivered to the video reception client 140 via the same data path. The main difference between video data and advertisement data is what motivates delivery. That is, the video data is started to be delivered in response to the viewer's delivery request. On the other hand, in addition to the viewer's delivery request, the delivery of the advertisement video data is started in accordance with a correspondence table of preset video data and advertisement. In a normal advertisement video delivery system, fixed advertisement videos corresponding to programs are only delivered. However, the present embodiment is characterized in that different advertisement videos are delivered to the same program video depending on the viewer. That is, in the present embodiment, the video information management table 150 stored in the main memory 103 provides the correspondence between the program video and the advertisement video added thereto. In this embodiment, in addition to this table, an advertisement information management table 155 is further provided in order to send a specific advertisement video to a specific client.

The video information management table 150 basically manages video names, advertisement insertion positions, and advertisement provider names. That is, the video information management table 150 is a database in which data is searched / updated by the video information management table management program 107, and the correspondence between videos and advertisements is managed by this table. Search and registration of the video information management table 150
The search processing program 108 and the update processing program 109 in the video information management table management program 107 are executed respectively.

The video information management table 150 is composed of six columns. In FIG. 1, four records 151, 15 are provided.
2, 153 and 154 are stored. The video name indicates the name of the video data to which the advertisement is added. The advertisement insertion position indicates at which time of each video the advertisement video should be inserted. A presentation time stamp defined by the MPEG1 system stream is used as an example of the delivery time. For example, the record 151 means that the advertisement image X3 is inserted when the presentation time stamp of the image A is 3000. The advertisement provider name indicates the provider of the advertisement image, and the provider is X in the record 151. The advertisement transmission condition is used when the same advertisement provider wants to switch and broadcast a plurality of advertisement videos. The column of the designated advertisement name indicates the advertisement video that is switched and delivered under these conditions. The example shown in FIG. 1 indicates that different advertisement images x3 and x4 should be switched and transmitted for the same image A in different time zones.
Advertisement delivery timing detection program 1 during video delivery
16 uses the video information management table 150 to start the delivery of the advertisement video specified in this table when the advertisement is in the insertion position. The record registration in the video information management table is performed in advance by the advertisement provider activating the update processing program 109 included in the video information management program 107.

On the other hand, the advertisement information management table 155, which is characteristic of this embodiment, holds, for each client, a specific advertisement video name to be delivered to the client and the name of the advertisement provider. The advertisement information management table 155 is a database whose data is searched / updated by the advertisement information management table management program 110, and the table manages the association between the viewer, the advertisement provider, and the advertisement video. The search and registration of the advertisement information management table 155 are executed by the search processing program 111 and the update processing program 112 in the advertisement information management table management program 110, respectively.

The advertisement information management table 155 is composed of five columns. In FIG. 1, four records 156 and 15 are shown.
7, 158 and 159 are stored. Record 156
The column will be explained by taking as an example. The record 156 shows that the advertisement provider name is X for the viewer with the client name U1.
Indicates that the advertisement provider instructed to send the advertisement video with the advertisement name X1. Further, the storage position of the advertisement video X1 in the video storage server is file1 of the server SV1, and it is shown that the viewer U1 has not yet viewed the advertisement X1. When the advertisement provider wants to send an advertisement to any viewer, it activates the update processing program 112 in the advertisement information management table management program 110 and registers the information of the advertisement video in the advertisement information management table 155.

Using this advertisement information management table 155, different advertisement images are delivered to each client. That is,
When the video information is requested to be delivered from any of the clients, the video delivery control program 121 in the delivery server 100 detects the provider of the advertisement to be added to the requested video from the video information management table 150, Further, the advertisement information management table 155 created for the client
To determine whether the ad provider has requested the client to deliver a particular ad. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, the advertisement information management table 155 for the client requesting the delivery of the image A is the advertisement provider of this image is X, and in the table 115, the advertisement provider is Since the advertisements X1 and X2 designated by the above are designated, any of these advertisement videos is delivered to this client as the advertisement of the video A. As described above, in this embodiment, different advertisements are delivered depending on the client.

Thus, instead of directly associating the video data name and the advertising video name, the advertising provider name is indirectly linked to each other, so that the advertising provider can deliver the individual advertising video suitable for the viewer. realizable. The delivery advertisement determining program 118, which is a feature of this embodiment, plays a role of indirectly connecting the video data name and the advertisement video name by using the advertisement provider name.

In this embodiment, a plurality of advertisement images can be designated from the same advertisement provider to the same client in this way. Further, a viewer who uses the client can select one of the plurality of advertisement images, for example, one of X1 and X2. Further, in this embodiment, it is possible to specify advertisements provided by a plurality of advertisement providers for the same video name. Further, in this embodiment, it is possible to view the advertisement video registered in the advertisement information management table 155 before the video data is delivered. This exempts the troublesome advertisement video delivery when viewing a video program. The watched flag in the advertisement information management table 155 indicates that the advertisement video has been watched by the client corresponding to this table in advance. When the specific advertisement specified by the advertisement provider of the requested video is not registered in the advertisement information management table 155, the advertisement video specified by the video information management table 150 is delivered to the client.

Next, the operation of the video delivery system of this embodiment will be described in more detail. In the following, each program of FIGS. 2 to 9 and the operation of the input screen shown in FIGS. 15 and 17 will be sequentially described with reference to FIG. 1 as necessary.

First, various programs used by the video receiving client 140 and stored in the main memory 146 will be described. (Video transmission request program 147) This program 14
Reference numeral 7 is activated by the viewer and issues a request for viewing video. First, the initial menu shown in FIG. 15 is displayed (step 200). Next, a viewing request from the user is input (step 201). For example, the viewer selects the check box 1601 as shown in FIG.
In 2, the video name A to be viewed is input. If there is a request to view the program video, step 202 is performed. If there is a request to view the advertisement video, step 203 is performed. If there is a request to view the advertisement list sent to the viewer, the step is performed. 207 is executed. However, if there is no request, the process returns to step 200 to wait for input. First, the viewing of the program video will be described. The description regarding the request for viewing the advertisement video and the search display of the advertisement list will be described later. As described above, the program video name A (FIG. 1) stored in the server name SV1 (video delivery server 100 in the example of FIG. 1) in step 201 is used.
In this example, the video information 151, 15 of the video information management table 150
The following description will be given on the assumption that the image A) indicated by 2 is input by the viewer U1. In step 202, the reception program 148 of the image A is activated. At step 204, a transmission request for video A is sent to the server SV1. The transmission request is sent to the video delivery server 100 via the network 130. After that, the image A is received, and step 20 is performed.
When the display end signal of the final packet of the video A is notified from the video reception program 148 in 6, the video transmission request program 147 ends (step 214).

(Video Reception Program 148) This program 148 is started by the video transmission request program 147 and receives video data. In step 301, the reception of video data from the video delivery server 100 is awaited.
The video data shall be transmitted as the above-mentioned MPEG1 system stream. FIG. 4 shows the structure of the MPEG1 system stream. The MPEG1 system stream is composed of a plurality of packs, and each pack stores a plurality of packets for storing video or audio data. In the packet, in addition to the video / audio data, the time at which these data should be reproduced is stored as a presentation time stamp (PTS). The video decoder of the client 140 uses this PTS to sequentially play back video / audio. Also, the end code is stored in the final pack, and the video reception program 1 of the client
At 48, the end of the video data is determined by recognizing this end code.

In step 302, the video data is NIA.
It is received from the network 130 via 142 and stored in a reception buffer area (not shown) on the main memory 146. In step 303, it is checked whether or not there is a data transfer request from the MPEG decoder, and if transfer is necessary, the video / audio packet on the main memory 146 is transferred to the decoder 143 in step 304. The decoder 143 decompresses the transferred data and displays it on the display 144.
In step 305, the reception of the final pack of the MPEG1 system stream of the video A is checked. Steps 301 to 305 are repeatedly executed until the final pack is reached. When the final pack is received, step 306 is executed, and steps 307 and 308 are executed to display the image until the data received by the client is exhausted from the reception data buffer. When the reception data buffer becomes empty, step 309 is executed to notify the start-up video transmission request program 147 of the end of display of the final video packet and terminate the video reception program 148 (step 310). This is the end of the description of the various programs used by the video reception client 140 and stored in the main memory 146.

Next, various programs used by the video delivery server 100 will be described. (Client Management Program 120) This program, as shown in FIG. 5, is a daemon process on the server and repeatedly waits for a delivery request from the user (step 500). If the received client transmission request is a program video or advertisement video delivery request, step 50
If 1 is a request to display a list of registered advertisements in the advertisement information management table 155, step 503 is executed. The latter will be described later. Step 5 upon receiving the video delivery request
01 is executed, and the address name of the client 140 and the name of the video to be delivered (video A in the above description using FIGS. 1 and 16) are stored in an area (not shown) on the main memory 103. In step 502, according to this stored information,
The video delivery control program 121 is activated, and the video A is delivered. Thereafter, in step 506, the process returns to step 500 to accept the video delivery request until the system operation of the video delivery server 100 ends.

(Video Delivery Control Program 121) This program is activated by the above-mentioned client management program 120 and executes video delivery. As shown in FIG. 6, first, the QOS (Quality of Ser
In order to secure the vice), in step 600, the transfer data amount and transfer interval in the pack forming the MPEG1 system stream are set. Here, to simplify the explanation, the transfer rate of video frames is set to 30 frames per second, one pack of video / audio data is stored in each pack, and the data is sent to the network in pack units. And That is, each pack is sent to the network at 1/30 second intervals.

In step 601, a file having a video name (video A in the description of FIG. 1) for which a delivery request has been issued is opened. In step 602, the video reading control program 122 is started using the file pointer of the video file (= A) as a parameter. In step 603, one pack of video data (equal to one frame in this embodiment) stored in the magnetic disk 106 by the video read control program 122 is transferred to the main memory 10 via the IOC 105.
Wait for the data to be read into the transmission buffer (not shown) above. In step 604, the presentation time stamp (PT
The advertisement delivery timing detection program 116 is started using S) as a parameter. The operation of the advertisement delivery timing detection program 116 will be described later. In step 605, the presence or absence of an advertisement delivery instruction from the delivery advertisement determination program 118 is checked. When the delivery advertisement determining program 118 notifies the advertisement delivery instruction with the advertisement name to be delivered, step 606 is executed. In step 606, the advertisement image is delivered by the image delivery program 121. The delivery of the advertisement video can be performed in the same manner as the delivery of the normal program video, and the description thereof will be omitted. When the delivery of the advertisement image started in step 606 is completed, step 607 is executed. Further, as will be described later, when there is no advertisement delivery instruction from the delivery advertisement determining program 118 in step 605, step 607 is executed. At step 607, the data of the image A is sent to the client by one pack. In step 608, the transmission of the final video pack of video A is checked. If the final pack has not been reached, the process returns to step 602, and the remaining data is transmitted. If the final frame has been reached, the video delivery control program 121 ends in step 609.

(Video reading control program 122) This program is the above-mentioned video delivery control program 121.
Then, the data of one pack of the image A is read out. As shown in detail in FIG. 7, first step 7
At 00, a read request for the magnetic disk 106 is issued to the IOC 105 using the file pointer of the video file (= A) as a parameter. In step 701, the video data read from the disk is stored in the transmission buffer area (not shown) of the main memory 103. The video data stored in the transmission buffer is sent to the client 140 by the video delivery control program 121 described above. This is the end of the description of the video read control program 121.

(Advertisement delivery timing detection program 11
6) This program is a video delivery control program 121
It is started at the time of sending the pack of the video data, and it is checked whether the pack needs to send the advertising video. As shown in FIG. 8, first in step 801, the value of the presentation time stamp (PTS) of the transmission pack of the video (= A) is received. In step 802, the video information management table management program 107 is requested to search the advertisement insertion position of the video (= A).

In response to the video information search request sent in step 802, the advertisement insertion position (= PTS value 3000) of video A is returned from the record 151 (or 152) to the advertisement delivery timing detection program 116 as a search result. The reason why the records 151 and 152 are duplicated will be described later. In step 803, it is checked whether the advertisement insertion position of the received search result matches the value of the presentation time stamp received from the video delivery control program 121. In the example of FIG. 1, step 804 is executed at the time of transmitting the video pack in which the PTS value of the video A is 3000. In step 804, to determine the delivery advertisement,
The delivery advertisement determination program 118 is activated with the client name (U1 in the example of FIG. 1), the advertisement provider name (provided X in the example of FIG. 1), the advertisement transmission condition, and the designated advertisement name as parameters.

(Advertisement information management table management program 110)
This program uses the time of the video delivery server 100 for the advertisement video information registered as in a normal database management system, and automatically deletes the registration information when a predetermined time has elapsed after the registration of the information. Has a trigger function. With this deletion function, the advertisement provider can realize the up-to-date advertisement provision to the viewer.

(Delivery Advertisement Determination Program 118) In FIG. 9, this program first waits in step 900 for the reception of a delivery advertisement determination request for a video (video A in the example of FIG. 1). In step 901, the advertisement information management table management is performed using the viewer name (U1 in the example of FIG. 1) and the advertisement provider name (provided X in the example of FIG. 1) received from the advertisement delivery timing detection program. Program 1
An advertisement information search request is sent to 10. In step 902, the presence or absence of an advertisement sent by the advertisement provider X to the viewer U1 is checked as a search result. In the example of FIG. 1, since the advertisement records 156 and 157 sent by the advertisement provider in advance are registered, step 904 is selected. If there is no advertisement sent in advance, step 903 is selected, which will be described later.

In step 904, it is checked whether or not the sent advertisement is viewed by the viewer prior to the video delivery. Records 156 and 157 showing advertisements X1 and X2 sent from the advertisement provider X to the viewer U1.
Indicates that both of the watched flags are not watched, so step 9
Go to 05. A case where the viewer has already viewed the sent advertisement will be described later. In step 905, it is checked whether the number of sent advertisements is plural. If there is one sent advertisement, step 906 is selected and this sent advertisement becomes the advertisement to be delivered to the viewer. On the other hand, a plurality of sent advertisements (record 1
56, 157) is present, step 907 is executed requesting the viewer to select an advertisement to view. Step 908 waits for the viewer's selection result, and step 9
In 09, the advertisement of the selection result is determined as the advertisement to be delivered to the viewer. In step 910, the video delivery control program is started using the determined delivery advertisement name, the advertisement video is delivered, and the process ends (step 911).

Returning to the description in step 902, when there is no advertisement image previously sent to the viewer U1. In this case, step 903 is selected. Step 903
Determines a delivery advertisement based on the information in the two columns of the advertisement transmission condition and the designated advertisement name in the video information management table 150. That is, in record 151, the advertisement transmission condition is'T: 6-.
15 'is designated, which means that if the viewing time of the video A is between 6:00 and 15:00, the advertisement X3 indicated by the designated advertisement name is delivered as the default designation. Also, in the record 152, the viewing time is 1
It indicates that the advertisement X4 is delivered if it is between 5:00 and 6:00. It goes without saying that the advertisement sending condition can be expanded to specify the sex and age of the viewer in addition to the viewing time shown in FIG. Step 90
In 3, the advertisement X3 or X4 is selected in accordance with the above-mentioned advertisement transmission designation condition, the advertisement video is delivered in step 910, and the process ends (step 911). As a result of the above, when the advertisement is not sent in advance for any viewer, the advertisement image added to the image is delivered by default also in this embodiment.

Finally, a case where the viewer has already viewed the sent advertisement of the search result in step 904 will be described. Record 1 registered in the advertisement information management table 155
58 will be described as an example. Record 158 is for viewer U
1 indicates that the advertisement Y1 sent by the advertisement provider Y has been viewed. The watched flag is set in the following two cases.

(1) When the viewer views the advertisement image sent by the advertisement provider in advance (2) When the advertisement image is not sent by the advertisement provider,
When the viewer himself / herself inputs and inputs the name of the desired advertisement video as the advertisement video he / she desires to view In the latter case, as the advertisement video is viewed, the corresponding advertisement video in the advertisement information management table Record registration is executed. In either case, the viewer will set the watched flag only when he / she views the advertisement video itself for the purpose of viewing the advertisement video, not the normal advertisement viewing.

Next, a case where the viewer desires to watch the advertisement video sent in advance will be described. In this case, step 2 of the video transmission request program 147 of FIG.
07 to 213 are executed. In step 201, if the viewer U1 desires to view the advertisement sent to himself who has been registered in the advertisement information management table, step 207 is executed. In step 207, a display request for a list of registered advertisements is sent to the video delivery server SV1 via the network 130. In step 208, a list of registered advertisements received from the video delivery server SV1 is displayed (FIG. 17).
In step 209, the viewer selects an advertisement image that he / she wants to view. In the example of FIG. 17, it is assumed that the advertisement image Y1 is viewed. Steps 210 to 212 are the same as steps 202 to 204 already described, and a description thereof will be omitted.
In step 213, a request for setting the viewed flag 158 of the viewed advertisement video Y1 is sent to the video delivery server 100. When the advertisement image Y1 is not set in the advertisement information management program 110, a request to register the record 158 of the advertisement image in the advertisement information management table and a request to set the watched flag 158 are sent to the image delivery server 100. . Regarding the setting of the pre-viewed flag information, it is possible to use the clock of the video delivery server 100 so that it is reset when a predetermined time has elapsed after setting the flag information. By this reset, the advertisement provider can expect the up-to-date advertisement provision to the viewer. If the viewer desires to view the advertisement image that has not been sent in step 201, step 203 is executed to input the advertisement name desired by the viewer. Step 2
Step 05 is the same as step 204 which has already been described, and a description thereof will be omitted.

The processing contents of the video delivery server 100 which has received the advertisement video viewing request will be described with reference to FIG. If the client transmission request received in step 500 is a request for displaying the registered advertisement list of the advertisement information management table 155, step 503 is executed. In step 503, the viewer U1 is read into an area in the main memory (not shown), and in step 504, the search processing program 111 of the advertisement information management table management program 110 is activated to list the registered advertisements sent to the viewer U1. Perform a search. In step 505, the list of registered advertisements as the search result is sent to the client via the network 130.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the viewer watches the advertisement video at an arbitrary time, so that the viewer is forced to view the advertisement when watching the normal video provided by the viewed advertisement provider. Will be exempted, and it will be possible to view videos with a high degree of freedom.

In the advertisement video delivery system of the present embodiment, it is possible to set a plurality of advertisement providers of the video data for arbitrary video data stored in the video delivery server.
At the time of delivering the advertisement video, the viewer is allowed to select which of the advertisements provided by the plurality of advertisement providers to view. The number of views of the viewer regarding the plurality of advertisement providers is stored in an area (not shown) on the main storage of the video delivery server 100,
It is easily possible to obtain the viewing ratio of the advertisement video related to the video data and determine the ratio of the advertisement fee burden on the provider. As a result, the advertisement provider can take an advertisement providing form with a high degree of freedom.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the advance designation of an arbitrary viewer selected by the advertisement provider, the advance selection of the advertisement image to be delivered to the person, and the advance selection of the selected advertisement image. Can be delivered, the advertisement can be delivered according to the viewer's preference of the advertisement provider, and the advertisement can be delivered with a high advertising effect for the advertisement provider.

<Second Embodiment> Next, a second embodiment of the advertisement video delivery system according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 10 to 14. The basic configuration of the advertisement video delivery system according to the present embodiment complies with FIG. However, the video information management table 150 managed by the video information management table management program 107 is provided in order to allow the viewer to specify the viewing method of the advertisement accompanying the selected video prior to viewing the selected video.
9 is used instead of the advertisement information management table 110 shown in FIG. 9, and the advertisement information management table 110 shown in FIG. 10 is used instead of the advertisement information management table 110 managed by the advertisement information management table management program 110.
Is used. Also, the video transmission request program 147 in the client 140 is replaced with the video transmission request program 147 in FIG. 12, and the client management program 120 in the video delivery server 100 is replaced with the client management program 1200 in FIG. The advertisement delivery timing detection program 116 shown in FIG. 14 is used instead of the advertisement delivery timing detection program 116. The differences from the first embodiment will be mainly described below.

(Video Information Management Table 150) As shown in FIG. 10, unlike the video information management table 150 of FIG. 1, the video information 150 of the present embodiment is provided with a column of the charge discount rate. Record 1001 is advertisement X2 when viewing video A
If you watch, you will get a 5% discount on the viewer's bill,
Record 1002 charges 10% if you watch advertisement Y2
It shows that it is discounted. The viewer can take a highly flexible viewing mode by using this information when selecting the viewing advertisement.

(Advertisement information management table 155) Unlike the advertisement information management table 155 of FIG. 1, in this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 11, the columns of the viewing necessity flag and the advertisement insertion position are included in this advertisement information management table. Has been added. A video transmission request program 147, which will be described later, sets values in both columns according to the advertisement viewing method that the viewer inputs prior to viewing the video. The record 1101 requests that the user U1 views the advertisement X2 prior to the video viewing, and the insertion position of the advertisement specifies that the PTS value is 0, that is, the advertisement viewing is specified at the beginning of the video viewing. Shows. In addition, the record 1102 shows that the viewer U1 is in the advertisement Y before the video is viewed.
It indicates that the viewing of No. 2 is designated as unnecessary.

(Video transmission request program 147) FIG.
As shown in, the video transmission request program 147 is a program in the client, and has a function of inputting the advertisement viewing mode of the viewer from the user prior to viewing the video and registering it in the advertisement information management table 155 in the server. .

(Video Transmission Request Program 147) The processing of this program is almost the same as the processing of the video transmission request program 147 shown in FIG. 2, and the following description will focus on the points different from the video transmission request program 147 of FIG. To do.
In step 201, the video name A to be viewed is input. In step 1202 newly added, the server SV
The user inputs 1 and the video name A. Step 12
In 03, the server SV1 and the display of the advertisement viewing mode of the video name A are requested. As a result, the client management program 120, which will be described later, is activated, and the PTS value of the video A is 300 based on the contents of the video information management table 150 shown in FIG.
The viewer of the client terminal indicates that the viewing of the advertisements X2 and Y2 is set at time 0. In step 1204, the viewer inputs the necessity of viewing for each advertisement and the insertion position of the advertisement as the desired advertisement viewing mode. Step 12
In 05, the viewing necessity flag and the advertisement insertion position input in step 1204 are registered in the advertisement information management table 155 of the server SV1. In the example of FIG. 11, regarding the viewer U1, it is indicated that the viewing position of the advertisement X2 is designated by the PTS value = 0 and the viewing position of the advertisement Y2 is designated as unnecessary. The remaining steps are the same as in FIG. 2 and will not be described. As described above, the video transmission request program 147 of FIG. 12 sets the advertisement viewing mode request for each viewer in the advertisement information management table 155 of FIG. 11.

(Client Management Program 120) This program has a function of providing the client with information regarding the display of advertisements accompanying each video. As shown in FIG. 13, in step 1200, the request of the viewer (= U1) relates to the request for viewing the program video or the advertising video, the request for displaying the list of the registered advertising video, or the accompanying advertisement of the video (= A). A distinction is made as to whether it is a request for information retrieval. If the search request is for information related to the accompanying advertisement of the video (= A), step 501 is executed and the client name (=
U1) and the viewing video name (= A) are read. In step 1302, the video information management table 150 of FIG. 10 is requested to search for the advertisement insertion position of the viewing video A and the charge discount rate. In step 1303, the search result is the network 13
It is sent to the client 140 via 0. The sent search result is displayed to the viewer by the above-mentioned video transmission request program 147. Further, after the video delivery in step 502 is completed, in step 1301, the billing amount is determined according to the billing amount for viewing video and the discount rate for viewing advertisement content.
The remaining steps are the same as in FIG. 5, and description thereof will be omitted.

As described above, the video transmission request program 147 of FIG. 12 and the client management program 120 of FIG. 13 allow the viewer to view the advertisement video accompanying the viewing video prior to viewing the video. As a result, the watched flag in the advertisement information management table 155 in the video delivery server 100 is set.

(Advertisement delivery timing detection program 11
6) The difference of this program from that of FIG. 8 will be described below. As shown in FIG. 14, in step 802, as shown in FIG.
The designated advertisement name of the video A registered in the video information management table 150 of 0 is searched. Furthermore, in step 1401 newly added, the advertisement information management table 155 of FIG. 11 is searched using the designated advertisement name (= X2) of the video A which is the search result, and whether the viewer U1 requests the viewing or not. To search for If there is a request, step 1402 is selected and the advertisement insertion position in the advertisement information management table is selected as the advertisement insertion position. The above flow is shown in FIG. 10 and FIG.
This will be described with reference to an example. The predetermined insertion position of the advertisement X2 of the image A is PTS = 3000 as indicated by the record 1001.
However, as for the advertisement X2, as shown in the record 1101 of FIG. 11, the viewer U1 requests the viewing and the PTS is set as the insertion position.
= 0 is specified. As a result, the advertisement X2 has PTS = 0.
You can see that it is inserted into.

On the other hand, if the viewing request for the designated advertising name (= X2) of the video A is not registered in the advertising information management table in step 1401, the viewer makes a specific request regarding the viewing method of the advertisement. It has not been shown.
In this case, step 1403 is executed and the search processing program 10 of the video information management table management program 107 is executed.
8 is started, and the designated advertisement name (= X2) of the video (= A)
The advertisement insertion position in the video information management table is searched to determine the advertisement insertion position. In step 803, it is checked whether the PTS value of the video being transmitted matches the advertisement insertion position set above. If they match, the delivery advertisement is determined in step 804.

As described above, according to the second embodiment, the viewer can freely set the contents of the advertisement accompanying the video and the position of viewing the advertisement prior to viewing the video. It is possible to view the video according to the taste of the person. Further, in the present embodiment, the viewing modes of the advertisement that can be set by the viewer are two points, that is, the advertisement content and the advertisement insertion position.
In addition, it is obvious that the size of the advertisement video screen and the advertisement viewing in parallel with the video viewing can be designated.

<Modification> (1) In the first and second embodiments, the advertisement image is delivered during the delivery of the advertisement image based on the time when the advertisement advertisement image is delivered, which is held in the image information management table. The advertisement delivery timing detection program 116 detects whether or not the time has arrived, and when it is detected that the time has arrived, the delivery advertisement determination program 118 is activated to determine the advertisement to be delivered for each client. Was. However, instead of this method, when a video delivery request is sent from a client, an advertisement to be delivered is determined, and when the advertisement arrives at the time when the advertisement should be delivered, the determined advertisement is delivered. But it is okay. In this modified example, the determination of the advertisement to be delivered can be executed more slowly than in the first and second embodiments.

(2) In the first embodiment, the video information management table 150 registered a plurality of advertisement videos by the same advertisement provider for one video. Depending on the position, delivery conditions, etc., only one of these advertisement images is delivered to the program image. However, when the viewing time of the program video is long, it is possible to use a plurality of advertisement videos for one program video, as in the case of broadcasting in normal commercial television broadcasting.

That is, the first embodiment can be modified so that different advertisement images are delivered at different positions of the same program image. In that case, in the video information management table 150,
Register multiple advertisement videos for the same video that are used at different delivery locations, and for each delivery location, use the advertisement that is used in place of the advertisement video that should be delivered at that time to the client currently requesting that video. It may be selected from the advertisement information management table 155 provided for it. To this end, a plurality of advertisement videos designated by the same advertisement provider are also registered in this advertisement information management table 155, and these different advertisement videos are displayed according to different delivery positions of the program videos. It is desirable to select from.

(3) In the first embodiment, in the video information management table 150, for one video, one or a plurality of advertisement videos by the same advertisement provider and their delivery positions, delivery conditions, etc. are registered. did. However, it is of course possible to register advertisement images by a plurality of advertisement providers in one program image, as in the case of ordinary commercial television broadcasting. That is, the first embodiment is designed so that the advertisement images from different advertisement providers are delivered at different positions of the same program image.
Can be transformed. In that case, in the image information management table 150, a plurality of advertisement images of the same image used at different delivery positions by different advertisement providers are registered, and advertisements to be delivered at each delivery position at each delivery position. The advertisement to be used instead of the video may be selected from the advertisement information management table 155 provided for the client who is currently requesting the video. To this end, a plurality of advertisement videos designated by these advertisement providers are also registered in this advertisement information management table 155, and the different advertisement delivery locations of the program videos and the advertisement providers of advertisements delivered there are registered. Accordingly, these different advertisement images are selected from the advertisement information management table.

(4) In both the first and second embodiments, the advertisement information management table 155 is provided for each client. However, even if this advertisement information management table is provided for each advertisement provider, different advertisements are provided for each client. It is also possible to deliver. That is, of the advertisement information management table 155 used in Example 1,
The advertisement information regarding the video related to the specific advertisement provider may be held for each client specified by the advertisement provider. In addition, information related to the operation of each client, such as the watched flag, needs to be stored for each client.

(5) Instead of having advertisement management information corresponding to each client for each advertisement provider as in the fourth modification, an advertisement information management table for each client group for each advertisement provider By using a method of storing the information and separately storing information indicating which group each client belongs to, a different advertisement image can be delivered to each client group.
In the first embodiment, different advertisement videos can be apparently delivered to each client, but since the number of advertisement videos to be prepared is actually limited, even in the first embodiment, the advertisement video is eventually designated for each client. . Therefore, in that respect, the fifth modification is substantially the same as the first embodiment.

(6) In the case where a plurality of advertisement videos provided by different advertisement providers are delivered to the same program video as in the second modification, the fourth or fifth modification may be applied. it can.

(7) In both the first and second embodiments, the video information management table 150 manages the video name and the advertisement name attached to the video in association with each other, and enables delivery of a specific advertisement corresponding to the program video. However, it is also possible to modify the embodiment so that a specific advertisement is delivered every time the viewer watches. In this case, in the video information management table 150, a column for designating the viewing time zone instead of the video name may be provided, and the association with the advertisement provider name or the designated advertisement name may be designated for each viewing time zone.

[0067]

According to the present invention, different advertisement images can be delivered to each viewer. In a more specific aspect of the invention of the present application, it becomes possible to deliver the advertisement image selected by the advertisement provider to each viewer selected by the advertisement provider.

According to another invention of the present application, if the viewer desires, the advertisement video can be viewed before the viewer views the video data.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a first embodiment of a video delivery system according to the present invention.

2 is a flowchart of a video transmission request program (147) of a video reception client used in the apparatus of FIG.

3 is a flowchart of a video reception program (148) of a video reception client used in the apparatus of FIG.

4 is a diagram showing a structure of an MPEG1 system stream used in the apparatus of FIG.

5 is a flowchart of a client management program (120) of the video delivery server used in the apparatus of FIG.

6 is a flowchart of a video delivery control program (121) of the video delivery server used in the apparatus of FIG.

7 is a flowchart of a video reading control program (122) of the video delivery server used in the apparatus of FIG.

8 is a flowchart of an advertisement delivery timing detection program (116) of the video delivery server used in the apparatus of FIG.

9 is a flowchart of a delivery advertisement determination program (119) of the video delivery server used in the apparatus of FIG.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing the configuration of a video information management table (150) used in the second embodiment of the video delivery system according to the present invention.

FIG. 11 is an advertisement information management table (1 used in the second embodiment.
55) is a diagram showing the configuration of FIG.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of a video transmission request program (147) of a video reception client used in the second embodiment.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart of a client management program (120) of the video delivery server used in the second embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart of an advertisement delivery timing detection program (116) used in the second embodiment.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen of an initial menu used in the first embodiment.

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing an example of user input to an initial menu used in the first embodiment.

FIG. 17 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen of an advertisement list used in the first embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

102 ... Internal bus, 104 ... Network interface adapter, 105 ... Input / output controller, 106 ... Magnetic disk, 143 ... Compressed video decoder

Claims (16)

[Claims] 1. A video delivery server having a storage device for storing a plurality of video data to be delivered and advertisement video data to be attached to the video data, and receiving the video data delivered from each of the video delivery servers. And a plurality of video receiving clients for displaying to a viewer, the video delivering server stores any video data requested by any video receiving client and advertisement video data to be attached to the video data. In a video delivery system that reads out from the storage device and sends out to the video reception client, when a delivery of video data is requested from any one of the plurality of video reception clients, a plurality of advertisements stored in the storage device From the video data, select the advertising video data to be attached to the requested video data depending on the video receiving client, An advertisement video delivery method for delivering selected advertisement video data as advertisement video data for the requested video data from the video delivery server to the specific video receiving client. 2. The advertisement video delivery method according to claim 1, wherein in the selection, the advertisement video data to be added to the requested video data is selected depending on the video data and the video receiving client. 3. A step of pre-storing advertisement information which is designated in advance by a predetermined advertisement provider corresponding to the requested video data and which designates the advertisement video data to be distributed to each of the group of video clients. In the selection, it is determined whether or not the advertisement information specifies advertisement video data to be added to the requested video data for the specific video reception client. The advertisement video delivery method according to claim 2, wherein when the advertisement video data is designated for the specific video receiving client, the designated advertisement video data is selected. 4. In the above selection, when a plurality of advertisement video data is designated for the particular video receiving client, information for identifying the designated plurality of advertisement video data is provided for the particular video receiving client. 4. The advertisement image delivery method according to claim 3, wherein the advertisement image is delivered to the user, and the user of the particular image reception client selects one of the plurality of designated advertisement image data. 5. In the delivery, if the advertising information does not specify advertising video data to be added to the requested video data to the specific video receiving client, the advertising information is requested. The advertisement video delivery method according to claim 3, wherein predetermined advertisement video data is selected as the advertisement video data to be added to the video data, without depending on the video receiving client. 6. The method further comprises a step of storing advertisement information for identifying a plurality of advertisement image data designated by a plurality of advertisement providers, corresponding to each of the plurality of image receiving clients. The advertisement video delivery method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of selecting one of a plurality of advertisement video data designated by the advertisement information stored for the video reception client. 7. The selection is a predetermined advertisement corresponding to the requested video data in a plurality of advertisement video data designated by advertisement information stored corresponding to the specific video receiving client. The advertisement image delivery according to claim 1, further comprising a step of determining whether or not at least one advertisement image data designated by the provider is included, and if the one advertisement image data is included, selecting the same. Method. 8. The advertisement information stored corresponding to the particular video receiving client according to a delivery request of the advertisement video data issued from the particular video receiving client before the delivery of the video data. Information for identifying a plurality of designated advertisement video data is delivered to the specific video reception client, and one of the plurality of advertisement video data transmitted from the specific video reception client is selected as a signal. Therefore, the selected one of the advertisement video data is delivered to the specific video receiving client, and after the delivery of the selected advertisement video to the specific video receiving client, the delivery request of the video data is transmitted to the specific video receiving client. When issued by the receiving client, select the advertisement video data to be added to the requested video data and execute the above delivery Advertisement video delivery method no claim 6. 9. A video delivery server having a storage device for storing a plurality of video data to be delivered and advertisement video data to be attached to the video data, and receiving the video data delivered from each of the video delivery servers. And a plurality of video receiving clients for displaying to a viewer, the video delivering server stores any video data requested by any video receiving client and advertisement video data to be attached to the video data. In a video delivery system that reads out from the storage device and sends out to the video receiving client, advertisement video data added to the video data before delivery of any video data requested to be delivered by any video receiving client When the video receiving client requests that the video data be delivered before the video data is delivered, the advertisement video Data is delivered from the video server to the video receiving client, the video data is delivered from the video server to the video receiving client after the delivery, and the advertisement video data is not delivered during the delivery of the video data. Advertising video delivery method. 10. A video delivery server having a storage device for storing a plurality of video data to be delivered and advertisement video data to be attached to the video data, and video data delivered from each of the video delivery servers. And a plurality of video receiving clients for displaying to a viewer, the video delivering server stores any video data requested by any video receiving client and advertisement video data to be attached to the video data. In a video delivery system that reads out from the storage device and sends out to the video receiving client, display of advertisement video data added to the video data when requesting delivery of any video data from any video receiving client A mode is specified, and the advertisement video data to be added to the requested video data has the display mode specified above. As appears Te, advertisement video delivery method of delivering the advertisement video data in the video receiving client from the video server. 11. The display mode is, in the video data,
11. The advertisement video delivery method according to claim 10, including an insertion position of the advertisement video data. 12. A video delivery server for storing video data and a video reception client for receiving the video data, wherein a viewer sends the name of the video data requested to be viewed to the video delivery server via the video reception client. Then
The video delivery server activates the video delivery process according to the name of the received video data and sends the video data of the received name to the video reception client, and the video reception client provides the received video data to the viewer, The video delivery server delivers an advertisement accompanying each video data to be viewed in advance to the video receiving client at a predetermined number and timing, and the video delivery server is set for each number of delivery of the advertisement video data and each video data to be viewed. In the video delivery device that determines the amount charged to the viewer from the viewing fee
In the video delivery server, an advertisement information management table that manages, for each client, a plurality of advertisement information, each advertisement information including an advertisement provider name and an advertisement video data name, is provided.
When there is an advertisement desired to be viewed by any viewer, the advertisement information relating to the advertisement is preset in the advertisement information table, and the program stored in the video delivery server is stored in the video delivery server. An image information management table that manages the name of the advertiser who provides the program image data for each image data is provided. If the video delivery program in the video delivery server detects the timing to deliver the advertisement video data during delivery of the program video data to any client, it is added in advance to the program video data being delivered. The name of the advertising provider being
An advertisement video delivery method for determining advertisement video data to be delivered from the advertisement information set in the advertisement information management table of the client. 13. When the advertisement provider has an advertisement desired to be viewed by any client, the advertisement information is set for the advertisement information regarding the advertisement preset in the advertisement information management table of the target client. The advertisement video delivery method according to claim 12, further comprising a step of deleting from the advertisement information management table after a predetermined time has elapsed. 14. The advertisement provider adds a delivery condition according to the age, taste, and listening time of the client for each of a plurality of predetermined advertisement video data, and the delivery advertisement decision program sets the delivery advertisement determination program of the client who inquires the video reception client. The advertisement video delivery method according to claim 12, further comprising the step of selecting advertisement video information to be delivered based on age, taste, and listening time. 15. Regarding the advertisement information stored in the advertisement information management table, the client to whom the advertisement information is sent,
Regardless of the viewing of the advertising video data that is forced along with the viewing of the video data, it is possible to view the advertising video data in advance based on the advertising information, and even if the advertising information is not sent, It enables to watch any advertisement video data in response to the request of the client, and when any client watches these advance advertisement video data, it indicates that the advertisement has been watched in advance. The viewing flag information can be set in each advertisement information stored in the advertisement information management table, and even when the client should watch the advertisement video data when viewing any video data, If the pre-viewed flag information of the determined advertisement information is set, the delivery of the advertisement video data designated by the advertisement information to the client is exempted, 13. The advertisement video delivery method according to claim 12, further comprising the step of deleting the advertisement information from the advertisement information management table. 16. Setting of pre-viewed flag information indicating that the advertisement has been watched in advance when an arbitrary client has watched the advertisement data in advance,
The advertisement video delivery method according to claim 15, further comprising a step of resetting a set value of the flag information after a predetermined time has elapsed after the setting.