Abstract:
The present invention relates to a system and method for capturing and recording parameters of events on portable devices with digital television receiver, a method for remote configuration of service parameters for capturing and recording events on portable devices, as well as portable device and server. More specifically, a system and method for capturing audience data, the method for remote configuration of audience data capture service, especially adapted for digital TV services on portable devices such as mobile phones, smartphones, personal digital assistants PDA, among others. 
     The feature particular to the invention help in setting up remotely the service. Besides, another important aspect of the present architecture is the fact that it is completely based on software, using only resources that are already present in portable devices with embedded service.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    The present invention relates to a system and method for capturing and recording parameters of events on portable devices with digital television receiver, a method for remote configuration of service parameters for capturing and recording events on portable devices, as well as portable device and server. More specifically, a system and method for capturing audience data, the method for remote configuration of audience data capture service, especially adapted for digital TV services on portable devices such as mobile phones, smartphones, personal digital assistants PDA, among others. 
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0002]    The present invention is necessary due to the absence of a simple and effective solution in the digital TV field on portable devices. The prior art presents some solutions to capture audience data on portable devices, as shown below. 
         [0003]    The patent document U.S. 60/749,443 published on Jun. 21, 2007, assignee: The Nielsen Company, disclosures a system and method for wireless measuring of devices for audio/visual (A/V). According to that document, an exemplary method provides the steps of receiving media content from a A/V source device, embedding a video overlay in media content wirelessly received and wireless transmitting media content and video overlay to a unit A/V wireless. The exemplary method receives, via a wireless connection, identification information for the hearing in response to the overlay video broadcast, and receives information from the behavior of audience through a wireless connection. 
         [0004]    The document published in Chinese CN 101370129 Feb. 18, 2009, owner: Zhongwei Shixum Satellite Tech (CN), presents a system for collecting statistical and analytical data, as well as a method of implementing mobile TV audience data capture of mobile television and direct broadcast satellite television. The system and method include a data collection module, a data encoding module, a data transmission module, a data service center and a module for statistical analysis of data. The data collection module is in a user terminal receiver that essentially encodes the data collected to form a text file. The data encoding module is, respectively, in the service center and the user data receiving terminal for the transmission of the text file with data from data service center. The data service center is on the front of the mobile television or direct broadcast television satellite. The module for analysis and statistical analysis of data implements statistical analysis of audience data for an audience ranking. The system and method provided by this invention are able to automatically collect data from the receiving terminal of the user terminal and transmit the collected audience to the data service center via a data communication module and processes, and statistically analyze the data in service center for obtainment of accurate and comprehensive ranking data for television programs. 
         [0005]    The Japanese document JP 2006352438 published on Dec. 28, 2006, owner: Casio Hitachi Mobile Comm Co aims to improve the accuracy of the survey audience rating of transmission for a mobile terminal and protect privacy. The document objects a receiving terminal that combines the information for the audience and transmits that information to a communication device on a network. This document increases the sample survey and thus the reliability of survey accuracy can be improved. Additionally, the receiving terminal displays the transmission choices as the user&#39;s participation in the survey of audience rating, receiving a transaction option that the user makes to choose from, keeping the information received from the user and allows a means to gather the audience data collection and a transmission means to transmit the data only when the information indicates the operation of choice user participation in the audience survey classification. Still, the privacy of the user who does not want to participate in the survey can be protected. 
         [0006]    The document U.S. Ser. No. 11/075,711 published on Sep. 15, 2005, owner: NTT DoCoMo, Inc. claims a mobile terminal comprising: a) receiving means, 2) means for reproducing the signal, 3) means for measuring the signal level, 4) means for generating information to generate a information, 5) means for transmitting information to transmit the information generated by the means for generating information. 
         [0007]    The document U.S. Ser. No. 10/079,435 published on Nov. 28, 2002, owner: Minoru Hashimoto, refers to a system and method for audience research. The method proposed by this document comprises the steps of acquiring the user identification through the communication network and determining the audience ranking based on the acquired identifications. 
         [0008]    According to the above proposals, the prior art solutions that use other modules in the architecture to help obtain audience data, usually traveling information through the conventional mobile data networks such as 2G and 3G networks. 
         [0009]    The approach that these proposals bring does not provide specific contributions in the area of application of the present invention. Although in some of the documents is implicitly mentioned the possibility of using the SMS channel to exchange messages between the data capture device and the server that processes the data, it is not dealt with the merits of how such messages are built, encapsulated, sent or received, nor to which class they belong. 
         [0010]    The approach of the present invention employs an efficient method of using the SMS channel of communication, beyond their conventional standard usage and defined in the standard conventional technique. 
         [0011]    As previously mentioned, the presented prior art solutions make a simple extrapolation of what is known in the area of audience data capture systems “wired” to the “wireless” environment. In the context of wireless systems, known solutions focus on using the Internet, which means, in practice, using the mobile data network. However, this solution, which is technically obvious, is not within the scope of the present invention, since it does not satisfy the requirement that the portable device may be captured at any time and in real time to logical reach of the server. 
         [0012]    Another difference that is not explored in any document of the prior art, is the possibility that the server can remotely configure the capture portable device. This feature is only technically feasible from the implementation presented in present invention. 
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0013]    The present invention shows a simple, robust and functional. solution for audience data capture of mobile digital television A primary object of the present invention is to provide a system comprising a portable device connected to the mobile network which collects use events of the digital television and a server, which processes information received from said portable device and can generate reports of audience data and that, in turn, can remotely configure the portable device. 
         [0014]    A second object of the invention is to enable the exchange of information between the said portable device and said server, in which sending information from mobile device to the server is done via SMS Class 2, and the receipt of information by the portable device originating from server is done via SMS Class 0, having a receiving port previously defined in the system. 
         [0015]    A third object of the invention is to provide a method to capture parameters and record events on portable devices with digital television receiver comprising obtaining user information such as name and location, as well as information about intensity of TV signal, physical and logical channels at the time of the event collection and access information to electronic program guide (EPG) or search for channels, for sending the events encapsulated in an SMS message class 2 to said server transparently to the user&#39;s portable device. 
         [0016]    Another object of the invention is to provide a method for remote configuration of service parameters capture and registration of events on portable devices, in which class 0 SMS with predefined port, are sent to portable devices to enable the service of capturing audience data or change SMS address of the server, for example. 
         [0017]    Other solutions for the same purpose have been proposed. However, the following features that distinguish the present invention clearly advance the existing state of the art:
       The use of a widely used service, safe and fast: the Short Message Service (SMS—Short Message Service) for traffic information;   The development of a new binary protocol for sending and receiving information that minimizes the amount of information traffic;   The use of all resources of the portable device to do a full analysis of audience data (user&#39;s location, the tuned channel, time of the audience, user information such as age, gender, profile, intensity of TV signal, among other fields);   The possibility of remote configuration of devices that capture the audience data and specific features on the server that processes the audience data.       
 
         [0022]    Another important aspect of the present invention is that the architecture is completely based on software, using only the resources that are already present in portable devices with embedded service. 
       Technical Advantages/Functional of the Invention 
       [0023]    The present invention shows some points that are important to the uniqueness of the solution. These points make the solution more robust, simple and at the same time, integrated with a variety of resources in terms of user and administrator. Here, some advantages of the present invention are presented:
       It is integrated into the portable software and it is not necessary any installation or configuration of software;   It is instantaneous, and you can follow up with a delay close to zero, all users who are connected or not and their respective channels tuned;   It does not use text protocol for sending data collection, which makes the application more secure. A specific protocol has been specially designed to optimize the sending of messages with the data collected more efficient in the transmission due to the fact that it does not waste the user bandwidth;   It uses class 2 SMS messages to send data from the capture device to the server and class 0 SMS messages with a port previously defined by the system for remote configuration for sending data from server to capture device, as discussed below. With this strategy, the sending/receiving information in this system is totally transparent to the user.   It uses SMS messages, which makes charging for the service simple, reduces cost and optimizes the speed at no cost to the network.   It measures not only the audience but also the number of users with the TV on, how long and at what time;   It also measures the intensity of TV signal, which supports, for example, operators to evaluate the quality of TV signal in certain regions;   It also measures access to the TV program guide (EPG);   It records how many channels were obtained from a search of channels, which channels are obtained, the time of the channel search, the user and date;   It provides extensive flexibility in configuration of the audience measurement server, making it easy to map the statistical data by area, period, time and movement;   It allows easy remote configuration, since all service maintenance and activation of capture audience data service is transparent to the end user, and is done via software.       
 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES 
         [0035]      FIG. 1  shows the overview of the system to capture audience data, according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0036]      FIG. 2  shows the overall architecture of the client system to capture audience data, according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0037]      FIG. 3  shows the communication protocol of the traffic on SMS (SMS Class 2, sent from the portable device to the server) of audience data, herein called DTVAM-DS protocol, according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0038]      FIG. 4  shows the communication protocol of the traffic on SMS (class 0 SMS to specific port previously defined by the system, sent by the server to the portable device) of configuration parameters and special messages of invitation, herein called DTVAM-SD protocol, according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0039]      FIG. 5  shows an exemplary graphical user interface for configuration of audience data capture service embedded in the in TV application, according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0040]      FIG. 6  shows an exemplary graphical user interface for startup of the TV application inviting users to participate in the service, according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0041]      FIG. 7  shows an exemplary graphical user interface for the custom menu in the application of the Messenger message that detects special invitation and direct option for use in the program for capturing parameters, according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0042]      FIG. 8  is shows the general architecture of the system server to capture audience data, according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0043]      FIG. 9  shows the flowchart of the method of sending data from the capture portable device to the server in the preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
           [0044]      FIG. 10  shows the flowchart of the method of sending data from server to capture portable device according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION 
       [0045]    The objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of an example implementation of the invention and attached drawings by way of non-limiting example, in which: 
         [0046]      FIG. 1  shows the client system as a portable device  101  connected to the mobile network that collects use events of the digital television on the portable device, a communication channel and a data server  102 , which processes information received from the client, generating reports on audience data and, in turn, being able remotely configure the client portable device  101 . 
         [0047]      FIG. 2  shows, in general, the architecture designed for the client system  101  for capturing audience data. Each of the components shown is a different software component, and each one by itself, provides a set of Application Programming Interfaces (API) so that together they form the service as a whole. 
         [0048]    According to the present invention, the SMS channel, existing in GSM networks, is used to facilitate the exchange of information between a portable device  101  and a server  102 , and sending information from the portable device  101  to the server  102  made via SMS Class 2 and receiving the information by portable device  101  coming from the server  102  done through SMS Class 0, having a receiving port previously defined in the system. 
         [0049]    A class 0 SMS is used to configure a server to demand the key parameters for capturing audience data on the portable device  101 . This configuration occurs transparently to the user in real time. 
         [0050]    As depicted in  FIG. 2 , the main component of this system is the manager Mgr DTVAM  111 . This DTVAM Mgr manager  111  is the entity that manages and processes the logic of receiving, transmitting and validating events generated and received by service as a whole within the portable device  101 . The manager analyzes not only the arrival of TV events of the application, but also calls for data to all other components to enable the assembly of the message for sending, checking whether the event is valid for the validation algorithms and still starting or finishing all other components within the service. 
         [0051]    The first component is a database, implemented in file, which includes a queue of events to be sent to the server. According to the preferred embodiment of the invention, for security and integrity of the system, each and every event is always validated by the service previously stored in a database. The sending of events occurs when the number of bytes in which event information is packaged are near, but does not exceed 140 bytes, or upon reaching a timeout, which is originally set to 10 minutes, according to preferred embodiment of the invention. Once events are sent to the server  102  and the latter confirms that the data arrived intact, such data is discarded from said database. 
         [0052]    The second component is the interface where the configuration parameters of the service is, in which all the preference parameters for both the end user and the service are configured. It is a fairly simple component that includes settings in nonvolatile memory for future launches due to battery loss or shutdown of the portable device  101 . 
         [0053]    The third component is the SIM card interface present in the application programming interfaces basic to portable device  101 . Through said component  3 , it is possible to obtain the user information on the SIM card (ICCID) and insert it into the event to be sent to the server  102 . With this information the server  102  then compares the ICCID with a detailed user registration (generally validated the purchase of portable device  101 ). Thus, it is possible to determine in the server  102 , a huge variety of individual characteristics in order to generate multiple combinations of reports. 
         [0054]    The component  4  is the interface of the portable device  101 , in which it is obtained the location information of the user in the time of the event computed in the service. Said interface  4  is used to get the country code of the cell (MCC), the code of the mobile network (MNC) and network identifier (Cell ID), in which the user was registered at collection event. Thus, with reasonable accuracy, it is possible to obtain the user&#39;s location and the region at the time of collection. This information may be required for reporting by region of interest to the mobile operator, for example. 
         [0055]    The component  5  is the TV circuit interface of the portable device. With this interface, it is possible to collect the signal of TV channels as well as the physical and logical channels at the time of collection event. Still, it is possible to obtain information such as access to electronic program guide (EPG) or search for channels. Such TV circuit interface  5  provides the following information:
       User answered “YES” in the activation message of the system;   User answered “NEVER” in the activation message of the system;   User activated the system through an invitation message for activation;   User activated via the menu system;   TV is turned off (it means focus loss);   TV is turned on (meaning focus gain);   Changing Channels—beginning the search of channels;   TV is tuned;   TV is not tuned;   Loss of TV signal;   Recovery of TV signal;   Results of searching channels;   Access to electronic program guide (EPG);   Exit of the electronic program guide (EPG);   Recognition of remote configuration;   Event of starting an incoming call, and   Event of ending an incoming call.       
 
         [0073]    The component  6  is the SMS interface for the portable device, known as TAPI (Telephone API). By means of this interface  6 , the device can send and receive SMS messages. In the case of sending messages to the server, the SMS messages are of type class 2. For receiving messages from the Server, SMS messages are of the class 0, with a port previously defined in the system. It should be note that the port previously defined by the system cannot be any port defined by default for the GSM standard SMS channel. 
         [0074]    The queuing means  7  serves to store the events received in a queue ordered by event date in order to optimize the sending of SMS messages to the portable device  101 . For performance reasons, this component keeps the information active in the volatile memory of the portable device  101 . Periodically, the component  7  sends to said component  1  the current queue of events to be stored in file serving for redundancy in case of any failures. 
         [0075]    The component  8  is a means for formatting events so that they are passed to the queue and then are sent by the SMS channel. This component encapsulates the events so that they are consistent with the protocol DTVAM-DS which will be detailed in  FIG. 3 . 
         [0076]    The component  9  is the means of implementation of SMS and MMS messages (Multimedia Messaging Service) embedded in the portable device  101 . This application is modified to be able to receive and process commands from the server on a specific port. These commands are forwarded to said manager DTVAM Mgr  111  that processes and executes the request. Said application  9  is responsible for processing the SMS invitation coming from the server  102 , showing a special interface for the user when reading the invitation. Special menus are added to the reading panel so that the user can directly accept service for capturing audience data using the application  9 , without going into the TV application. 
         [0077]    The component  10  is the application of the TV itself. By means of this component  10 , the events are generated and passed on to that manager  111 . Said manager  111  processes and validates if the event is suitable for registration or for disposal. The TV application can also display periodically pop-ups inviting users to participate in the service for capturing data audience. There is a specific menu so that the user can interact when he wants and enable or disable the service for data capture. 
         [0078]      FIGS. 3 and 4  show one of the different aspects of the solution of the present invention which is the protocol used to encapsulate the data collected from the TV application within a SMS message. These SMS messages are sent to specific ports, determined by the server, with the restriction that such ports are not already specified by the standard SMS. These SMS messages are sent as Class 2, are concatenated and, according to the preferred embodiment of the invention, they do not require confirmation of arrival at the server  102 . They use data bytes available to send the SMS message encoded in 8 bits and are sent in binary form, not in text form, as usual. 
         [0079]    In  FIG. 3 , we can represent the useful area of SMS data as the whole train of bytes represented. It will be specified each of the components from left to right, where each small rectangle represents one byte: 
         [0080]    The component  20  is a sequence number added to the event so that the server can track whether a SMS message is being lost during transmission. It goes from 0 to 255 and is cyclical. 
         [0081]    The component  21  represents the ID of the event being sent. A bit mask is applied for recognition. 
         [0082]    The component  22  represents the event date collected, with priority to the network time and if not available, the time of the portable device. The mode of representation is 2 characters per byte. 
         [0083]    The component  23  represents fields MCC+MNC+Cell ID, respectively, represented in two characters per byte. 
         [0084]    The component  24  represents, respectively, the physical and logical channels, representing, respectively, the frequency of the channel and the channel number assigned at the time of collection. 
         [0085]    The component  25  represents the strength of TV signal at the time of collection of the event. The component  26  represents channels obtained from a channel search and is optional. This information is only sent in case of searching channels. In the case of sending it, as expanded in  26   a  and  b , the first byte is how many channels were obtained from the search, being cut at  20 . Thereafter, the channels are represented by two bytes, one byte for the physical channel and a channel to the logical channel. 
         [0086]    Once an event ends, another is attached to the end to maximize space in the SMS data. According to the preferred embodiment of the invention, if an event does not fit at the end of the SMS message so that it has to be broken, the whole event then moves to the next message. The current message is then sent with a small “surplus” in the data field. 
         [0087]    In the case of network failure, the events are stored on disk, and as soon as the portable device is registered again on a network, all events accumulated are sent to the server. 
         [0088]      FIG. 4 , further describing the protocol here called DTAVAM-SD protocol, shows the data field of the SMS message for configuration coming from the server for the devices. This SMS message can contain one or a plurality of commands at a time, and all are processed at once when they reach the portable device. This SMS is a SMS class 0, unique, having 16-bit port address and is also not concatenated.  FIG. 4  also shows the field data as in  FIG. 3  and each small rectangle represents one byte. 
         [0089]    Starting with the reference number  31 , the field represents the number of configuration messages in the message SMS, followed by sequence number to track the message if no text message was lost on the path represented by  32 . 
         [0090]    Thereafter, all fields marked with standard “cross” represents the command code in question, followed by the fields marked with standard “in x” representing the command data. The main commands, according to the preferred embodiment of the invention are described below:
       00—Command to change the number of times that the TV application is initialized before the invitation pop-ups begin to appear at startup;   01—Turns on or off the system remotely, if it has already been activated by the user;   02—Change the time to validate a particular type of event, the event being represented by 1 byte of the type of event and one byte for the new value;   03—Change the address of the SMS server. It is represented by two numbers per byte;   04—Change the time of accumulation of events in the queue before shooting SMS messages with the events to the server.   05—This is SMS message invitation, represented by the first byte to the size of the message followed by the message itself;       
 
         [0097]      FIG. 5  shows, in a simple way, a graphical user interface, according to the preferred embodiment of the invention, the configuration menu on the TV application on the portable device. From this screen, it is possible to preserve user privacy, if he wishes to disable the service, for example, or change any other parameters available. 
         [0098]      FIG. 6  shows an exemplary graphical user interface for the startup of the TV application inviting users to participate in the service, according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. From this interface, the user is enabled to choose to participate or not in service. 
         [0099]      FIG. 7  shows an exemplary graphical user interface for the custom menu that detects invitation messages and direct option to use the service, according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. This screen of the SMS Application of the portable device  101  shows a invitation text message to the user with service options to capture audience data direct from application  9 . 
         [0100]      FIG. 8  shows the architecture of the server to receive the events generated in portable devices with the service for data capture audience enabled. 
         [0101]    The server manager  431  is the interface that receives information from the records and events captured by the portable device  101 . This information is processed and consolidated by that manager to obtain the desired audience data. This manager  431  also conducts management of the activity of remote configuration of service parameters and capture records of events on the portable device  101 . In addition, the item  431  is able to cross all the events databases, process requests for graphics and still refer to the Web Server that needs to provide this data in an organized way in the final reports. The manager  431  can cross the ICCID user information, and save in the events database the full range of user information saved in the database of previously registered users. 
         [0102]    Item  41  represents the physical interface of the radio channel through which the server exchanges SMS messages with the portable device  101 . 
         [0103]    Item  42  is the interface of SMS that in case of receiving an SMS Class 2 from the portable device  101 , it validates the integrity of the data and forwards it to the server manager  431 . In the case of sending an SMS class 0 message to the portable device  101 , item  42  validates the information generated by the server manager  431  and packages it according to the DTVAM-SD protocol defined in  FIG. 4 . 
         [0104]    Item  44  is a relational database capable of managing all data event captured by the manager  431  and saved in the same.  44  This database was designed so to be able to mount various types of graphs later as demanded by the service administrator. 
         [0105]    Item  45  is a Web server capable of processing data from the database  44  and display them, then, in the form of graphs. 
         [0106]    According to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the sending of an SMS server  102  to the portable device  101  is outlined as follows: the server  102  sends a class 0SMS, with port previously defined for the aforementioned portable device  101 , in which that interface  6  receives the SMS text message and checks the class and port. If the SMS message is Class 0 and the port is that previously defined in the system, then the information is passed to the mentioned manager  111  so that the capture parameters of the audience data are configured. It is important to indicate that in the display screen of the portable device, it will not be presented any information about this setting and the user will not have to take any additional action for this configuration is performed. Using this approach, you can perform the following operations:
       Changing the value to show the activation message;   changing state of activation of the service for capturing audience data;   changing timeout to detect events in a specific category;   changing SMS address of the server  102 ;   changing the value of accumulation period of system events, and   showing invitation message for activating the service data capture audience.       
 
         [0113]      FIG. 9  shows the method for capturing and sending audience data of digital television viewing on portable devices comprising the following steps:
       Initializing the service of capturing parameters and register events on the portable device  101  (Step E 901 );   providing the user&#39;s information in the SIM card (ICCID) and insert the same in the event to be sent to the server, allowing the server to later compare the ICCID with a detailed record of the user (Step E 902 );   obtaining the location information of the user in the time for the event computed in the service (Step E 903 );   Collecting information about the intensity of TV signal, physical and logical channels at the time of the event collection and information access to electronic program guide (EPG) or searching for channels (step E 904 );   Storing the received events in a queue ordered by event date (Step E 905 );   Formatting the events to be saved in the queue for sending by encapsulating the events in accordance with the protocol DTVAM-DS (Step E 906 );   Repeating the steps E 904  to E 906  until the maximum size of 140 bytes of an SMS is reached or exceed the timeout of 10 minutes (Step E 907 ); and   Sending events encapsulated in an SMS class 2message to the server  102  transparent to the user&#39;s portable device  101  (Step E 908 ).       
 
         [0122]      FIG. 10  shows the method of remote configuration of the service to capture and record events in portable device comprising the following steps:
       Setting the portable devices ( 101 ) that will receive the setup message by means of the manager ( 431 ) (Step E 1001 );   Defining the parameters that are set on the portable devices ( 101 ) through the manager ( 431 ) (Step E 1002 );   Assembling SMS Class 0 messages with pre-defined port by the system, according to the protocol DTVAM-SD, which will be sent to portable devices ( 101 ) (Step E 1003 );   Sending messages from the server ( 102 ) to the portable device ( 101 ) (Step E 1004 );   Receiving the configuration server ( 102 ) on the portable device ( 101 ) on a specific port defined by the system (Step E 1005 ) and   Processing the contents of the SMS in the portable device ( 101 ) and generate a set of actions to be performed by the manager ( 111 ) (Step E 1006 ).       
 
         [0129]    According to the method of the present invention, these specific actions sent by the server manager  431  are included in the group comprising:
       changing the value for displaying the activation message;   changing activation state of service for capturing audience data;   changing the timeout to detect events in a specific category;   changing SMS address of the server  102 ;   changing the value of accumulation period of system events, and   showing invitation message for activating the service for capturing audience data.       
 
         [0136]    Although a preferred embodiment of the present invention is shown and described, those skilled in the technical will understand that various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention, as defined in the appended claims. 
         [0137]    It is also expressly stated that all combinations of elements that perform the same function in substantially the same way to achieve the same results are within the scope of the present invention.