Patent Publication Number: US-2019191209-A1

Title: Systems and methods for creating rated and curated spectator feeds

Description:
BACKGROUND 
     With the development of platforms for sharing media assets, users of a media guidance application may want to generate for display, in addition to conventional programming, media content which includes user-generated videos. However, with conventional media guidance applications, users may be unable to access user-generated videos and to generate for display these user-generated videos, including videos showing user reactions to live events or programming. Accordingly, users of a media guidance application may find that they are unable to share their reactions to certain programming or certain live events with other users of a media guidance application. Alternatively, users of a media guidance application may find that they are unable to filter user-generated videos before generating them for display. Accordingly, users of a media guidance application may find that they are forced to either forgo sharing videos of user reactions or be subjected to all user-generated videos which likely include inappropriate or undesirable user reactions. 
     SUMMARY 
     Accordingly, methods and systems are disclosed herein for a media guidance application that solves the aforementioned problems by providing users with an opportunity to share their reactions to media programming or live events through user-generated videos, and to generate for display these user-generated videos, subject to content filtering. For example, the media guidance application may provide options to generate for display user-generated videos in a picture-in-picture window, and options to filter the content of the user-generated videos according to user preferences. Advantageously, the media guidance application enhances the user experience by allowing users to share reactions and to be part of a collective experience while remaining in the comfort of their home. 
     To do so, the media guidance application may receive and process, at a server, media assets (e.g., user reactions to programming) from multiple user devices, and identify a subset of the received media assets matching set user preferences (e.g., user reactions to specific programming) before generating for display the subset at another user device. 
     In some aspects, the media guidance application may receive at a server, a first video asset from a first content capture device at a first location and a second video asset from a second content capture device at a second location. For example, the media guidance application may receive at a server, a video uploaded by John to the server with his cellphone. In this example, the media guidance application may also receive at the server, a video uploaded by Claire to the server from the set-top box used by Claire. In this example, John may have been a spectator at the Capitals-Hurricanes hockey game in DC, and may have uploaded his reaction to TJ Oshie&#39;s goal in the first period. Claire may have been watching the Capitals-Hurricanes game from her home in Boston, and her reaction to the TJ Oshie goal may have been captured by her set-top box. 
     The media guidance application may, in near-real time, determine a first characteristic of the first video asset and assign a first content tag to the first video asset corresponding to the first characteristic. For example, the media guidance application may determine that a characteristic of John&#39;s video is “R” rated, due to his use of profanities. The media guidance application may determine that another characteristic of John&#39;s video is “Sports,” “Hockey,” “Capitals,” or any combination thereof. In this example, the media guidance application may use, in real-time or near-real time, a combination of an Automatic Content Recognition algorithm and a human performing moderation to validate content recognition and associated characteristics. 
     The media guidance application may, in near-real time, determine a second characteristic of the second video asset and assign a second content tag to the second video asset corresponding to the second characteristic. For example, the media guidance application may determine that a characteristic of Claire&#39;s video is “cute” or “T-shirt humor” based on her facial expressions or because of the “I love TJ Oshie” t-shirt she was wearing in the video. 
     The media guidance application may receive a video-feed request from a third location. For example, Max may be watching the Capitals-Hurricanes game at home in Baltimore, by himself. Because Max may be missing his friends and the atmosphere of a hockey game, Max may request a video-feed of user-videos related to the Capitals-Hurricanes game. 
     The media guidance application may process the video feed request from the third location to determine a video feed criterion For example, Max may have requested a “funny” video feed specifically for the Capitals-Hurricanes game. Alternatively, Max may have specified, for example in a user profile, that his favorite hockey team is the Capitals, and that he is a 23 year old male. Accordingly, the media guidance application may only present videos of other Capitals fans, 23 year old males, etc. 
     The media guidance application may input the video feed criterion into a database listing characteristics that meet criteria to determine that the first characteristic and the second characteristic meet the video feed criterion For example, the media guidance application may input the video feed criterion from Max&#39;s request “funny” into a database listing corresponding characteristics. In this example, for a 23 year old male, “funny” may correspond to characteristics including “R” and “T-shirt humor.” 
     The media guidance application may, in response to determining that the first characteristic and the second characteristic meet the video feed criterion, automatically generate for display a video feed including the first video asset and the second video asset on a display device at the third location. For example, the media guidance application may automatically generate for display at Max&#39;s device, a video feed which includes the video received from John&#39;s cell-phone, or the video received from Claire&#39;s set-top-box. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application performs automatic content recognition of the first video asset and the second video asset to determine the first characteristic and the second characteristic, using at least one of video recognition, text recognition and metadata analysis For example, the media guidance application may perform automatic content recognition of Claire&#39;s video to determine that her t-shirt reads “I love TJ Oshie” and because TJ Oshie is a player on the Capitals roster this is related to the Capitals and may be tagged “T-shirt humor.” In this example, the media guidance application may also perform automatic recognition of Claire&#39;s facial expressions to detect if she is smiling, laughing or jumping up and down in excitement. In the same example, the media guidance application may perform automatic recognition on the video received from John&#39;s cell phone, to determine that John is yelling profanities, and the video may be tagged “R-rated.” The media guidance application may also process the metadata associated with the video from John&#39;s cell phone and determine that the video was uploaded at Verizon Center, and may be tagged “Verizon Center.” 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application determines a level of uncertainty associated with the first or second content tags and provides the first video asset or second video asset to a human curator to approve or edit the first or second content tag. For example, the media guidance application may perform automatic content recognition on the video received from John&#39;s cell phone and determine with 40% confidence that John is saying “Let&#39;s go Caps.” In this example the media guidance application may send John&#39;s video to a human curator to determine whether the media guidance application accurately interpreted John&#39;s words “Let&#39;s Go Caps” or whether John is saying something else. For example, in the event that the media guidance application was correct, the human curator may confirm the interpretation. Alternatively, in the event that the media guidance application was incorrect, the human curator may enter the correct interpretation, or enter a correct content tag, such as “R-rated” if John is swearing instead of saying “Let&#39;s go Caps.” 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application assigns a content corresponding to a characteristic which identifies a human curator. For example, a human curator may be identified by a specific content tag which may be an identification sequence, or a content tag which may be recognizable by users, such as “CapsFan123” or “JohnWalton.” 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application accesses a user profile and retrieves from the user profile the video feed criterion. For example, as described above Max may indicate in his user profile that his favorite teams are the Jaguars, the Capitals, and the Red Sox, that he is 23 years old, and enjoys funny home videos, and R-rated movies. In this example, the media guidance application may process information from Max&#39;s user profile and determine video feed criterion which match Max&#39;s interests. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application determines the video feed criterion automatically from user behavior. For example, the media guidance application may determine Max&#39;s favorite teams and like of R-rated movies based on when John typically tunes in, or which programs he most frequently watches, for example the Patriots, or R-rated movies. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application determines that a video feed is public and shares the video feed with other users. For example, the media guidance application may have received a video feed request from Max for funny R-rated videos related to the Capitals-Hurricanes game. In this example, other users may have similar interests and when the media guidance application makes Max&#39;s requested video-feed publicly available, other users may browse from a listing of video-feeds and select the video feed already requested by Max. In this example the other users would also see funny R-rated videos related to the Capitals-Hurricanes game. In this example, the users may not need to specify the characteristics of the video-feed and may just select to watch Max&#39;s pre-defined video feed. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application generates for display the video feed in a picture-in-picture window on the display device. For example, the media guidance application may allow Max to watch the Capitals-Hurricanes game on NHL Center Ice in full screen mode, but may also generate for display for Max the requested video-feed for funny R-rated videos related to the game in a picture-in-picture window. In this example, the media guidance application allows Max to watch the game from his home but also experience the kind of interactions Max enjoys when he goes to the game. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application generates for display the video feed on a display device at a fourth location. For example, the media guidance application may generate for display the video feed on Max&#39;s television in his living room, and on the television in his friend Jed&#39;s room. In this example the media guidance application generates for display the video feed request by Max in two different locations which may be within the same home network, or in different home networks. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application determines first and second characteristics which include actor, genre, year, theme and age rating. For example, the media guidance application may assign content tags such as “Johnny Depp” and “Comedy” to the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean.” 
     It should be noted that the systems and/or methods described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with, other systems, methods, and/or apparatuses. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will be apparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters refer to like parts throughout, and in which: 
         FIG. 1  shows an illustrative media guidance application for selecting media assets in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; 
         FIG. 2  shows an illustrative media guidance application that may be used to request video-feeds in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; 
         FIG. 3  is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; 
         FIG. 4  is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; 
         FIG. 5  is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determining whether a characteristic has a level of certainty above a specified certainty threshold, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; 
         FIG. 6  is exemplary pseudocode of an algorithm for determining whether a characteristic has a level of certainty above a specified certainty threshold, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; 
         FIG. 7  is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determining characteristics in a media asset, using a database containing characteristics and user-specified criterion, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; 
         FIG. 8  is exemplary pseudocode of an algorithm for determining characteristics in a media asset, using a database containing characteristics and user-specified criterion, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; 
         FIGS. 9 and 10  show an illustrative media guidance application for requesting video-feeds in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and 
         FIG. 11  is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in requesting video-feeds, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS 
     Methods and systems are disclosed herein for enhancing the viewing experience for users of a media guidance application. In any given content delivery system sharing content and reactions to content with other users is a substantial part of user&#39;s experience. Consequently, many users desire to watch user reactions to programs while simultaneously watching a program by using picture-in-picture windows, a full screen separate channel, or a full screen or partial screen interface to watch a video feed of user reactions to the program. An application that provides such features and guidance is referred to herein as an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a media guidance application or a guidance application. 
     Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms depending on the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type of media guidance application is an interactive television program guide. Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to as electronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that, among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many types of content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications may generate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigate among, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms “media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean an electronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, as well as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand (VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadable content, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information, pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles, books, electronic books, blogs, advertisements, chat sessions, social media, applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/or combination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users to navigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term “multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at least two different content forms described above, for example, text, audio, images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded, played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also be part of a live performance. 
     The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performing any of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computer readable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable of storing data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including, but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals, or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile and non-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk, floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processor caches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc. 
     With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speed wireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment devices on which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase “user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronic device,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “media device” should be understood to mean any device for accessing the content described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-top box, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellite television, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), a digital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, a DVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, a BLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PC media server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationary telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, a portable video player, a portable music player, a portable gaming machine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computing equipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screen and a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angled screens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipment devices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same content available through a television. Consequently, media guidance may be available on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be for content available only through a television, for content available only through one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or for content available both through a television and one or more of the other types of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may be provided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or as stand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Various devices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications are described in more detail below. 
     As referenced to herein, the term “near-real time” refers to a process running without significant delay for a user, for example on the order of seconds, milliseconds or microseconds. 
     As referenced to herein, the term “characteristic” refers to a property of a media asset including properties transparent to users, for example properties defined in metadata, and properties visible to users, for example, a title, an actor, a genre category, a production year, etc. 
     As referenced to herein, the term “content tag” refers to a non-hierarchical keyword or term to perform classification of media assets. For example a content tag “John Wayne” and a content tag “Western” may be assigned to a media asset which is a John Wayne western to represent and mark the actor characteristic and the genre characteristic of the media asset. 
     As referenced to herein, the term “criterion” refers to requirements which are used to filter media assets. For example, at least one characteristic of a media asset has to comply with or match with criterion in order for that media asset to be filtered and generated for display to a user. 
     As referenced to herein, the term “pre-defined” or “pre-determined” may be used interchangeably and refer to properties set directly or indirectly as a result of an automatic action from the media guidance application. 
     As referenced to herein, the term “user-defined” or “user-specified” may be used interchangeably and refer to properties defined either directly or indirectly as a result of a user action. 
     As referenced to herein, the term “location” refers to the location of any user device. For example, location may be the location of a user set-top box or a user mobile device, either in or out of a home. 
     As referenced to herein, the term “content capture device” refers to user devices which may be used to upload content to a server either continuously or at specified time intervals. Alternatively, content capture devices may also refer to commercial or professional devices such as cameras used by media providers to broadcast live events. 
     In a first exemplary embodiment, the media guidance application may receive at a server, a first video asset from a first content capture device at a first location and a second video asset from a second content capture device at a second location. For example, the media guidance application may receive at a server, a video uploaded by John to the server with his cell phone. In this example, the media guidance application may also receive at the server, a video uploaded by Claire to the server from the set-top box used by Claire. In this example, John may have been a spectator at the Capitals-Hurricanes hockey game in DC, and may have uploaded his reaction to TJ Oshie&#39;s goal in the first period. Claire may have been watching the Capitals-Hurricanes game from her home in Boston, and her reaction to the TJ Oshie goal may have been captured by her set-top box. 
     Alternatively, the media guidance application may receive a video feed directly from a broadcaster. For example, camera crews at sport events such as football games, baseball games or hockey games may simultaneously broadcast the game, and also have cameras scanning the audience and uploading or transmitting the audience feed to the server. For example, an audience-focused camera at a football game may look for enthusiastic fans, for people holding up signs, for people having interesting face painting, or for people exhibiting behavior of interest (e.g., taking too many selfies, dancing, drinking too much, kissing, having an argument, etc.). In alternative examples, the media guidance application may receive at the server a combination of the above-described user videos and professional videos. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, in near-real time, determine a first characteristic of the first video asset and assign a first content tag to the first video asset corresponding to the first characteristic. For example, the media guidance application may determine that a characteristic of John&#39;s video is “R” rated, due to his use of profanities. The media guidance application may determine that another characteristic of John&#39;s video is “Sports,” “Hockey,” “Capitals,” or any combination thereof. 
     In alternative examples, the media guidance application may determine multiple characteristics for the same video feed segment. For example, a sequence of a college aged fan with face paint may be characterized as “intense” and “college” and “bros” and if the face painting is associating with a team, e.g., the Patriots, “Patriots.” 
     In alternative examples, the media guidance application may split the video feed into fixed time intervals and assign characteristics to each time intervals. In one example, the media guidance application may assign at least one characteristic to each time interval. In another example, the media guidance application may not assign a characteristic to every time interval. In alternative examples, the media guidance application may automatically split the video feed based on content recognition. For example when a video feed changes subject or changes position, the media guidance application may initiate a new segment. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, in near-real time, determine a second characteristic of the second video asset and assign a second content tag to the second video asset corresponding to the second characteristic. For example, the media guidance application may determine that a characteristic of Claire&#39;s video is “cute” or “T-shirt humor” based on her facial expressions or because of the “I love TJ Oshie” t-shirt she was wearing in the video. 
     Alternatively, when the cell phone of a user, e.g., Dave, is the second content capture device, the media guidance application may determine that a characteristic associated with the video asset from Dave&#39;s cell phone is related to what Dave was watching. For example, Dave may be commenting on a movie or TV series, such as “Game of Thrones” by saying “Can you believe what Tyrion just did?” In this example, the media guidance application may determine characteristics of the second media asset (Dave&#39;s video) associated with Dave&#39;s reaction and associated with the subject of Dave&#39;s reaction. In this example, characteristics of the media asset associated with Dave&#39;s reaction may be “surprise” “confusing,” or “excitement” and characteristics of the media asset associated with the subject of Dave&#39;s reaction may be “new episode,” “plot twist,” “Tyrion,” and “Game of Thrones.” 
     In an alternative example, the media guidance application may receive a user-generated video of patrons at a Bruins game which includes footage of a fan with a Patriots jersey. The media guidance application may assign the video multiple characteristics such as “everyday,” “Patriots,” “football,” “Hockey,” “confused” and “TD Garden.” 
     In another example, the media guidance application may receive a user-generated video of someone making a joke in front of the Liberty Bell. The media guidance application may assign the video characteristics such as “Liberty,” “Monuments,” “Philadelphia,” and “Joke.” 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application may receive a video-feed request from a third location. For example, Max may be watching the Capitals-Hurricanes game at home in Baltimore, by himself. Because Max may be missing his friends and the atmosphere of a hockey game, Max may request a video-feed of user-videos related to the Capitals-Hurricanes game. 
     Alternatively, the media guidance application may receive video-feed requests from a group of friends who are in different locations but wish to share a show or a sporting event. For example, the media guidance application may receive requests from Abe, Brad and Colin for a “TerribleThree” video feed. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application may process the video feed request from the third location to determine a video feed criterion For example, Max may have requested a “funny” video feed specifically for the Capitals-Hurricanes game. Alternatively, Max may have specified, for example in a user profile, that his favorite hockey team is the Capitals, and that he is a 23 year old male. 
     In the “TerribleThree” example above, the media guidance application may process the video feed request at Abe, Brad and Colin&#39;s locations and find that their request is for a feed of their closed group&#39;s reactions to the Bruins game. The video feed in this example may be narrowly defined, for example with a specific combination of characteristics or a custom criterion (as defined for example via user input and shown in  FIG. 10 ), such as “Terrible Three.” In this example, a video feed will only have the “Terrible Three” characteristic under certain conditions. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application may input the video feed criterion into a database listing characteristics that meet criteria to determine that the first characteristic and the second characteristic meet the video feed criterion. For example, the media guidance application may input the video feed criterion from Max&#39;s request “funny” into a database listing corresponding characteristics. In this example, for a 23 year old male, “funny” may correspond to characteristics including “R” and “T-shirt humor.” 
     Alternatively, the media guidance application may input the video feed criterion from Abe, Brad and Colin&#39;s requests “TerribleThree” into a database listing corresponding characteristics. In this example, the database may indicate that to match the “TerribleThree” criterion, the characteristics must be the location of Abe, the location of Brad, or the location of Colin. In this example, only videos originating from Abe, Brad and Colin would be found to have characteristics matching the “TerribleThree” requested video feed criterion. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, in response to determining that the first characteristic and the second characteristic meet the video feed criterion, automatically generate for display a video feed including the first video asset and the second video asset on a display device at the third location. For example, the media guidance application may automatically generate for display at Max&#39;s device, a video feed which includes the video received from John&#39;s cell-phone, or the video received from Claire&#39;s set-top-box. 
     Alternatively, the media guidance application may automatically generate for display, at Abe, Brad and Collin&#39;s devices, a video feed which includes videos generated at each of the three users&#39; locations, allowing them to share their reaction to a particular broadcast or event. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application may insert additional videos or advertisements into the video feed, in addition to the first and second media assets with characteristics matching the video feed criterion. For example, when the media guidance application determines that no media asset matches the requested video feed criterion, the media guidance application may expand the video feed criterion, to allow media assets which may be related to or close to the video feed criterion to be generated for display in the video feed. Alternatively, the media guidance application may fill gaps in the video feed generated for display by selecting advertisements which are related to the media assets generated for display. For example, in a video feed of funny fan reactions to the Capitals-Hurricanes game, the media guidance application may, between two user-generated videos selected to be generated for display, insert an advertisement for Halloween costumes including Red Rockers and Slapshot costumes. Alternatively, when no media assets match the requested video feed criterion, the media guidance application may generate for display a uniform background, or generate for display a message indicating that no matching media asset was found, such as “Wait—looking for the next video,” or “No video found, consider changing your request.” 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application performs automatic content recognition of the first video asset and the second video asset to determine the first characteristic and the second characteristic, using at least one of video recognition, text recognition and metadata analysis For example, the media guidance application may perform automatic content recognition of Claire&#39;s video to determine that her t-shirt reads “I love TJ Oshie” and because TJ Oshie is a player on the Capitals roster this is related to the Capitals and may be tagged “T-shirt humor.” In this example, the media guidance application may also perform automatic recognition of Claire&#39;s facial expressions to detect if she is smiling, laughing or jumping up and down in excitement. In the same example, the media guidance application may perform automatic recognition on the video received from John&#39;s cell phone, to determine that John is yelling profanities, and the video may be tagged “R-rated”. The media guidance application may also process the metadata associated with the video from John&#39;s cell phone and determine that the video was uploaded at Verizon Center, and may be tagged “Verizon Center.” 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application determines a level of uncertainty associated with the first or second content tags and provides the first video asset or second video asset to a human curator to approve or edit the first or second content tag. For example, the media guidance application may perform automatic content recognition on the video received from John&#39;s cell phone and determine with 40% confidence that John is saying “Let&#39;s go Caps.” In this example the media guidance application may send John&#39;s video to a human curator to determine whether the media guidance application accurately interpreted John&#39;s words “Let&#39;s Go Caps” or whether John is saying something else. For example, in the event that the media guidance application was correct, the human curator may confirm the interpretation. Alternatively, in the event that the media guidance application was incorrect, the human curator may enter the correct interpretation, or enter a correct content tag, such as “R-rated” if John is swearing instead of saying “Let&#39;s go Caps.” 
     In an exemplary embodiment, the certainty threshold for confirming a characteristic and the corresponding tag for a media asset may be set by the user. Alternatively, the certainty threshold may be set by the system. Alternatively, the certainty threshold may vary depending on characteristics. For example, a certainty threshold for tagging content as “R-rated” may be relatively high (70%) to require review for all “R-rated” characteristics with a certainty value below the 70% threshold—this conservative threshold may help avoid R-rated content being generated for display to users who do not expect R-rated content. Alternatively, a certainty threshold for a characteristic such as “comedy” may be lower, such as 40%. In this example, “comedy” characteristics with a certainty level between 40-100% would not be subject to human curator review. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application assigns a content corresponding to a characteristic which identifies a human curator. For example, a human curator may be identified by a specific content tag which may be an identification sequence, or a content tag which may be recognizable by users, such as “CapsFan123” or “JohnWalton.” 
     In some examples, users may request a video feed with a characteristic including a specific human curator, such as “JohnWalton” if users have liked videos tagged by “JohnWalton” in the past. 
     In another example, a characteristic may also be a popularity rating, such as an indication of how many users requested a video feed with the same criterion, or how many video feed requests resulted in the selection of a particular media asset. For example, a video feed request for a combination of “funny,” “hockey,” and “newbies” may be common amongst users. In this example, the media guidance application may assign an additional tag to media assets with characteristics matching the “funny,” “hockey” and “newbies” criterion, such as “popular” or “must see.” 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application accesses a user profile and retrieves from the user profile the video feed criterion. For example, as described above Max may indicate in his user profile that his favorite teams are the Jaguars, the Capitals, and the Red Sox, that he is 23 years old, and enjoys funny home videos, and R-rated movies. In this example, the media guidance application may process information from Max&#39;s user profile and determine video feed criterion which match Max&#39;s interests. 
     Alternatively, the media guidance application may automatically acquire information about a user&#39;s location, or a user&#39;s preferences based on the channels a user subscribes to. Alternatively, the media guidance application may communicate with other user devices to acquire additional user information. For example, the media guidance application may be in communication with a user&#39;s phone, a user&#39;s computer, and have access to a user&#39;s web browser history, Facebook searches, and Twitter followers. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application determines the video feed criterion automatically from user behavior. For example, the media guidance application may determine Max&#39;s favorite teams and like of R-rated movies based on when John typically tunes in, or which programs he most frequently watches, for example the Patriots, or R-rated movies. Alternatively, the media guidance application may provide a user with an option to rate a requested video feed with “like” and “dislike.” Alternatively, the media guidance application may provide a user with an option to rate individual segments or media assets shown within a requested video feed as “like” or “dislike” or with a scaled rating (e.g., from 1 to 5). In another example, the user may be able to skip a particular segment or media asset shown in the video feed without affecting the rating of the asset of the feed. In this example, the media guidance application may use the user feedback on media assets and video feeds to adapt and improve the video feeds generated for display in response to a user request. For example, Adam may have indicated that the Colts are his favorite team, but in his requested “funny” “football” video-feed he also repeatedly dislikes videos which include Patriots fans. In this example, the media guidance application may detect that Adam does not like the Patriots and automatically screen media assets to no longer generate for display media assets which have the characteristics “funny,” “football” and “patriots.” 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application determines that a video feed is public and shares the video feed with other users. For example, the media guidance application may have received a video feed request from Max for funny R-rated videos related to the Capitals-Hurricanes game. In this example, other users may have similar interests and when the media guidance application makes Max&#39;s requested video-feed publicly available, other users may browse from a listing of video-feeds and select the video feed already requested by Max. In this example the other users would also see funny R-rated videos related to the Capitals-Hurricanes game. In this example, the users may not need to specify the characteristics of the video-feed and may just select to watch Max&#39;s requested video feed. 
     In one example, the media guidance application may allow Max to make his newly requested video feed public. In this example, another user may access a menu for requesting a video feed (e.g. as shown in  FIGS. 9-10 ) and options may include an option to access a listing of other user&#39;s public feeds. In an alternative embodiment, Max may select to share his requested video feed with only a few other users, by emailing or sending a message or link to his feed to other users through the media guidance application. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application generates for display the video feed in a picture-in-picture window on the display device. For example, the media guidance application may allow Max to watch the Capitals-Hurricanes game on NHL Center Ice in full screen mode, but may also generate for display for Max the requested video-feed for funny R-rated videos related to the game in a picture-in-picture window. In this example, the media guidance application allows Max to watch the game from his home but also experience the kind of interactions Max enjoys when he goes to the game. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application may generate for display two or more requested video feeds in two or more picture-in-picture windows. In this example, David may be able to watch the Colts-Patriots game on the main display area, to watch an “R-rated” and “funny” video feed in one picture-in-picture display area, and to watch a “Colts fans” “awesome” video feed in another picture-in-picture display area. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application generates for display the video feed on a display device at a fourth location. For example, the media guidance application may generate for display the video feed on Max&#39;s television in his living room, and on the television in his friend Jed&#39;s room. In this example the media guidance application generates for display the video feed request by Max in two different locations which may be within the same home network, or in different home networks. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application determines first and second characteristics which include actor, genre, year, theme and age rating. For example, the media guidance application may assign content tags such as “Johnny Depp” and “Comedy” to the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean.” In some embodiments, characteristics and content tags may include references to other platforms, such as social media platforms “#Deflategate” for Twitter, or Instagram or Youtube handles. 
     One of the functions of the media guidance application is to provide media guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “media guidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any data related to content or data used in operating the guidance application. For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidance application settings, user preferences, user profile information, media listings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcast channels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parental control ratings, critic&#39;s ratings, etc.), genre or category information, actor information, logo data for broadcasters&#39; or providers&#39; logos, etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D, etc.), advertisement information (e.g., text, images, media clips, etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type of guidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locate desired content selections. 
       FIGS. 1-2  show illustrative display screens that may be used to provide media guidance data. The display screens shown in  FIGS. 1-2  may be implemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While the displays of  FIGS. 1-2  are illustrated as full screen displays, they may also be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A user may indicate a desire to access content information by selecting a selectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, a listings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicated button (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user input interface or device. In response to the user&#39;s indication, the media guidance application may provide a display screen with media guidance data organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in a grid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category (e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories of programming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organization criteria. 
       FIG. 1  shows illustrative grid of a program listings display  100  arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different types of content in a single display. Display  100  may include grid  102  with: (1) a column of channel/content type identifiers  104 , where each channel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column) identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a row of time identifiers  106 , where each time identifier (which is a cell in the row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid  102  also includes cells of program listings, such as program listing  108 , where each listing provides the title of the program provided on the listing&#39;s associated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can select program listings by moving highlight region  110 . Information relating to the program listing selected by highlight region  110  may be provided in program information region  112 . Region  112  may include, for example, the program title, the program description, the time the program is provided (if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), the program&#39;s rating, and other desired information. 
     In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., content that is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipment devices at a predetermined time and is provided according to a schedule), the media guidance application also provides access to non-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipment device at any time and is not provided according to a schedule). Non-linear programming may include content from different content sources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g., streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content (e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above or other storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demand content may include movies or any other content provided by a particular content provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time Warner Company L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM are trademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content may include web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or content available on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content through an Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP). 
     Grid  102  may provide media guidance data for non-linear programming including on-demand listing  114 , recorded content listing  116 , and Internet content listing  118 . A display combining media guidance data for content from different types of content sources is sometimes referred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of the types of media guidance data that may be displayed that are different than display  100  may be based on user selection or guidance application definition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings, only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings  114 ,  116 , and  118  are shown as spanning the entire time block displayed in grid  102  to indicate that selection of these listings may provide access to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings, or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings for these content types may be included directly in grid  102 . Additional media guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selecting one of the navigational icons  120 . (Pressing an arrow key on a user input device may affect the display in a similar manner as selecting navigational icons  120 .) 
     Display  100  may also include video region  122 , advertisement  124 , and options region  126 . Video region  122  may allow the user to view and/or preview programs that are currently available, will be available, or were available to the user. The content of video region  122  may correspond to, or be independent from, one of the listings displayed in grid  102 . Grid displays including a video region are sometimes referred to as picture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalities are described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794, issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other media guidance application display screens of the embodiments described herein. 
     Advertisement  124  may provide an advertisement for content that, depending on a viewer&#39;s access rights (e.g., for subscription programming), is currently available for viewing, will be available for viewing in the future, or may never become available for viewing, and may correspond to or be unrelated to one or more of the content listings in grid  102 . Advertisement  124  may also be for products or services related or unrelated to the content displayed in grid  102 . Advertisement  124  may be selectable and provide further information about content, provide information about a product or a service, enable purchasing of content, a product, or a service, provide content relating to the advertisement, etc. Advertisement  124  may be targeted based on a user&#39;s profile/preferences, monitored user activity, the type of display provided, or on other suitable targeted advertisement bases. 
     While advertisement  124  is shown as rectangular or banner shaped, advertisements may be provided in any suitable size, shape, and location in a guidance application display. For example, advertisement  124  may be provided as a rectangular shape that is horizontally adjacent to grid  102 . This is sometimes referred to as a panel advertisement. In addition, advertisements may be overlaid over content or a guidance application display or embedded within a display. Advertisements may also include text, images, rotating images, video clips, or other types of content described above. Advertisements may be stored in a user equipment device having a guidance application, in a database connected to the user equipment, in a remote location (including streaming media servers), or on other storage means, or a combination of these locations. Providing advertisements in a media guidance application is discussed in greater detail in, for example, Knudson et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0110499, filed Jan. 17, 2003; Ward, III et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,756,997, issued Jun. 29, 2004; and Schein et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,388,714, issued May 14, 2002, which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. It will be appreciated that advertisements may be included in other media guidance application display screens of the embodiments described herein. 
     Options region  126  may allow the user to access different types of content, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidance application features. Options region  126  may be part of display  100  (and other display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user by selecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignable button on a user input device. The selectable options within options region  126  may concern features related to program listings in grid  102  or may include options available from a main menu display. Features related to program listings may include searching for other air times or ways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling series recording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite, purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a main menu display may include search options, VOD options, parental control options, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronization options, second screen device options, options to access various types of media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premium service, options to edit a user&#39;s profile, options to access a browse overlay, or other options. 
     The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user&#39;s preferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user to customize displays and features to create a personalized “experience” with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may be created by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by the media guidance application monitoring user activity to determine various user preferences. Users may access their personalized guidance application by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to the guidance application. Customization of the media guidance application may be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations may include varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays, font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g., only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channels based on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display of channels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g., recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality, etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internet content (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail, electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desired customizations. 
     The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profile information or may automatically compile user profile information. The media guidance application may, for example, monitor the content the user accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with the guidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application may obtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to a particular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the user accesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidance applications the user accesses, from other interactive applications the user accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.), and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that the media guidance application may access. As a result, a user can be provided with a unified guidance application experience across the user&#39;s different user equipment devices. This type of user experience is described in greater detail below in connection with  FIG. 4 . Additional personalized media guidance application features are described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties. 
     Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown in  FIG. 2 . Video mosaic display  200  includes selectable options  202  for content information organized based on content type, genre, and/or other organization criteria. In display  200 , Personalized option  204  is selected, thus providing listings  206 ,  208 ,  210 , and  212  as broadcast program listings, and providing options for additional personalized feeds, as defined in  FIGS. 9 and 10 . In display  200  the listings may provide graphical images including cover art, still images from the content, video clip previews, live video from the content, or other types of content that indicate to a user the content being described by the media guidance data in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also be accompanied by text to provide further information about the content associated with the listing. For example, listing  208  may include more than one portion, including media portion  214  and text portion  216 . Media portion  214  and/or text portion  216  may be selectable to view content in full-screen or to view information related to the content displayed in media portion  214  (e.g., to view listings for the channel that the video is displayed on). 
     The listings in display  200  are of different sizes (i.e., listing  206  is larger than listings  208 ,  210 , and  212 ), but if desired, all the listings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes or graphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user or to emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider or based on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphically accentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. 
     Users may access content and the media guidance application (and its display screens described above and below) from one or more of their user equipment devices.  FIG. 3  shows a generalized embodiment of illustrative user equipment device  300 . More specific implementations of user equipment devices are discussed below in connection with  FIG. 4 . User equipment device  300  may receive content and data via input/output (hereinafter “I/O”) path  302 . I/O path  302  may provide content (e.g., broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, content available over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN), and/or other content) and data to control circuitry  304 , which includes processing circuitry  306  and storage  308 . Control circuitry  304  may be used to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable data using I/O path  302 . I/O path  302  may connect control circuitry  304  (and specifically processing circuitry  306 ) to one or more communications paths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a single path in  FIG. 3  to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. 
     Control circuitry  304  may be based on any suitable processing circuitry such as processing circuitry  306 . As referred to herein, processing circuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or more microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors, programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may include a multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or any suitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments, processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separate processors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same type of processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multiple different processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Core i7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry  304  executes instructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e., storage  308 ). Specifically, control circuitry  304  may be instructed by the media guidance application to perform the functions discussed above and below. For example, the media guidance application may provide instructions to control circuitry  304  to generate the media guidance displays. In some implementations, any action performed by control circuitry  304  may be based on instructions received from the media guidance application. 
     In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry  304  may include communications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidance application server or other networks or servers. The instructions for carrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on the guidance application server. Communications circuitry may include a cable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, a digital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card, or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or any other suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involve the Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths (which is described in more detail in connection with  FIG. 4 ). In addition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enables peer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communication of user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (described in more detail below). 
     Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage  308  that is part of control circuitry  304 . As referred to herein, the phrase “electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood to mean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, or firmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives, optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD) recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders, digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal video recorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gaming consoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storage devices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage  308  may be used to store various types of content described herein as well as media guidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used (e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-based storage, described in relation to  FIG. 4 , may be used to supplement storage  308  or instead of storage  308 . 
     Control circuitry  304  may include video generating circuitry and tuning circuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2 decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, or any other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of such circuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog, or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided. Control circuitry  304  may also include scaler circuitry for upconverting and downconverting content into the preferred output format of the user equipment  300 . Circuitry  304  may also include digital-to-analog converter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry for converting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encoding circuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and to display, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encoding circuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitry described herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating, encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digital circuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or more general purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may be provided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and record functions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording, etc.). If storage  308  is provided as a separate device from user equipment  300 , the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multiple tuners) may be associated with storage  308 . 
     A user may send instructions to control circuitry  304  using user input interface  310 . User input interface  310  may be any suitable user interface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard, touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognition interface, or other user input interfaces. Display  312  may be provided as a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of user equipment device  300 . For example, display  312  may be a touchscreen or touch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface  310  may be integrated with or combined with display  312 . Display  312  may be one or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD) for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature poly silicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, active matrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathode ray tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescent display, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display, thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display, surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television, carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulator display, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images. In some embodiments, display  312  may be HDTV-capable. In some embodiments, display  312  may be a 3D display, and the interactive media guidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. A video card or graphics card may generate the output to the display  312 . The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be any processing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry  304 . The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry  304 . Speakers  314  may be provided as integrated with other elements of user equipment device  300  or may be stand-alone units. The audio component of videos and other content displayed on display  312  may be played through speakers  314 . In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to a receiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers  314 . 
     The guidance application may be implemented using any suitable architecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone application wholly-implemented on user equipment device  300 . In such an approach, instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage  308 ), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodic basis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, or using another suitable approach). Control circuitry  304  may retrieve instructions of the application from storage  308  and process the instructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based on the processed instructions, control circuitry  304  may determine what action to perform when input is received from input interface  310 . For example, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated by the processed instructions when input interface  310  indicates that an up/down button was selected. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-server based application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented on user equipment device  300  is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests to a server remote to the user equipment device  300 . In one example of a client-server based guidance application, control circuitry  304  runs a web browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. For example, the remote server may store the instructions for the application in a storage device. The remote server may process the stored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry  304 ) and generate the displays discussed above and below. The client device may receive the displays generated by the remote server and may display the content of the displays locally on equipment device  300 . This way, the processing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server while the resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device  300 . Equipment device  300  may receive inputs from the user via input interface  310  and transmit those inputs to the remote server for processing and generating the corresponding displays. For example, equipment device  300  may transmit a communication to the remote server indicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface  310 . The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that input and generate a display of the application corresponding to the input (e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display is then transmitted to equipment device  300  for presentation to the user. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded and interpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (run by control circuitry  304 ). In some embodiments, the guidance application may be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received by control circuitry  304  as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by a user agent running on control circuitry  304 . For example, the guidance application may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, the guidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files that are received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitable middleware executed by control circuitry  304 . In some of such embodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital media encoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encoded and transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio and video packets of a program. 
     User equipment device  300  of  FIG. 3  can be implemented in system  400  of  FIG. 4  as user television equipment  402 , user computer equipment  404 , wireless user communications device  406 , or any other type of user equipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gaming machine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to herein collectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may be substantially similar to user equipment devices described above. User equipment devices, on which a media guidance application may be implemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of a network of devices. Various network configurations of devices may be implemented and are discussed in more detail below. 
     A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system features described above in connection with  FIG. 3  may not be classified solely as user television equipment  402 , user computer equipment  404 , or a wireless user communications device  406 . For example, user television equipment  402  may, like some user computer equipment  404 , be Internet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while user computer equipment  404  may, like some television equipment  402 , include a tuner allowing for access to television programming. The media guidance application may have the same layout on various different types of user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of the user equipment. For example, on user computer equipment  404 , the guidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a web browser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled down for wireless user communications devices  406 . 
     In system  400 , there is typically more than one of each type of user equipment device but only one of each is shown in  FIG. 4  to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize more than one type of user equipment device and also more than one of each type of user equipment device. 
     In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user television equipment  402 , user computer equipment  404 , wireless user communications device  406 ) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example, a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first user equipment device. The content presented on the second screen device may be any suitable content that supplements the content presented on the first device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides an interface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the first device. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured for interacting with other second screen devices or for interacting with a social network. The second screen device can be located in the same room as the first device, a different room from the first device but in the same house or building, or in a different building from the first device. 
     The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent media guidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices. Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and program favorites, programming preferences that the guidance application utilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, and other desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channel as a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on their personal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as a favorite on the user&#39;s in-home devices (e.g., user television equipment and user computer equipment) as well as the user&#39;s mobile devices, if desired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can change the guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless of whether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device. In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user, as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application. 
     The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network  414 . Namely, user television equipment  402 , user computer equipment  404 , and wireless user communications device  406  are coupled to communications network  414  via communications paths  408 ,  410 , and  412 , respectively. Communications network  414  may be one or more networks including the Internet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a 4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, or other types of communications network or combinations of communications networks. Paths  408 ,  410 , and  412  may separately or together include one or more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-optic path, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g., IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wireless signals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path or combination of such paths. Path  412  is drawn with dotted lines to indicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in  FIG. 4  it is a wireless path and paths  408  and  410  are drawn as solid lines to indicate they are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, if desired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be provided by one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a single path in  FIG. 4  to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. 
     Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipment devices, these devices may communicate directly with each other via communication paths, such as those described above in connection with paths  408 ,  410 , and  412 , as well as other short-range point-to-point communication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wireless paths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or other short-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is a certification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipment devices may also communicate with each other directly through an indirect path via communications network  414 . 
     System  400  includes content source  416  and media guidance data source  418  coupled to communications network  414  via communication paths  420  and  422 , respectively. Paths  420  and  422  may include any of the communication paths described above in connection with paths  408 ,  410 , and  412 . Communications with the content source  416  and media guidance data source  418  may be exchanged over one or more communications paths, but are shown as a single path in  FIG. 4  to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of content source  416  and media guidance data source  418 , but only one of each is shown in  FIG. 4  to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The different types of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, content source  416  and media guidance data source  418  may be integrated as one source device. Although communications between sources  416  and  418  with user equipment devices  402 ,  404 , and  406  are shown as through communications network  414 , in some embodiments, sources  416  and  418  may communicate directly with user equipment devices  402 ,  404 , and  406  via communication paths (not shown) such as those described above in connection with paths  408 ,  410 , and  412 . 
     Content source  416  may include one or more types of content distribution equipment including a television distribution facility, cable system headend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g., television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediate distribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demand media servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned by the National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by the American Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Content source  416  may be the originator of content (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) or may not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand content provider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs for downloading, etc.). Content source  416  may include cable sources, satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers, over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Content source  416  may also include a remote media server used to store different types of content (including video content selected by a user), in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems and methods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely stored content to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connection with Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. 
     Media guidance data source  418  may provide media guidance data, such as the media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may be provided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. In some embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-alone interactive television program guide that receives program guide data via a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Program schedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the user equipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digital signal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitable data transmission technique. Program schedule data and other media guidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog or digital television channels. 
     In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source  418  may be provided to users&#39; equipment using a client-server approach. For example, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from a server, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipment device. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing on the user&#39;s equipment may initiate sessions with source  418  to obtain guidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of date or when the user equipment device receives a request from the user to receive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment with any suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specified period of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to a request from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source  418  may provide user equipment devices  402 ,  404 , and  406  the media guidance application itself or software updates for the media guidance application. 
     In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data. For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical user activity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches, what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interacts with a social network, at what times the user interacts with a social network to post information, what types of content the user typically watches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information, etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. For example, the subscription data may identify to which sources or services a given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the given user has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g., whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user has added a premium level of services, whether the user has increased Internet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or the subscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period of more than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., a survivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihood a given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, the media guidance application may process the viewer data with the subscription data using the model to generate a value or score that indicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate access to a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score may indicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminate access to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the media guidance application may generate promotions and advertisements that entice the user to keep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one to which the user will likely terminate access. 
     Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-alone applications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, the media guidance application may be implemented as software or a set of executable instructions which may be stored in storage  308 , and executed by control circuitry  304  of a user equipment device  300 . In some embodiments, media guidance applications may be client-server applications where only a client application resides on the user equipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. For example, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as a client application on control circuitry  304  of user equipment device  300  and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., media guidance data source  418 ) running on control circuitry of the remote server. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such as media guidance data source  418 ), the media guidance application may instruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance application displays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipment devices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry of the media guidance data source  418  to transmit data for storage on the user equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry of the receiving user equipment to generate the guidance application displays. 
     Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices  402 ,  404 , and  406  may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT content delivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any user equipment device described above, to receive content that is transferred over the Internet, including any content described above, in addition to content received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content is delivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet service provider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP may not be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, or redistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets provided by the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers include YOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IP packets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is a trademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu, LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively provide media guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or media guidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidance applications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications), or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored on the user equipment device. 
     Media guidance system  400  is intended to illustrate a number of approaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devices and sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each other for the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. The embodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset of these approaches, or in a system employing other approaches for delivering content and providing media guidance. The following four approaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example of  FIG. 4 . 
     In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each other within a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with each other directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemes described above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similar device provided on a home network, or via communications network  414 . Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate different user equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may be desirable for various media guidance information or settings to be communicated between the different user equipment devices. For example, it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidance application settings on different user equipment devices within a home network, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types of user equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with each other to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content from user computer equipment to a portable video player or portable music player. 
     In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment by which they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, some users may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobile devices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidance application implemented on a remote device. For example, users may access an online media guidance application on a website via a personal computer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA or web-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g., recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidance application to control the user&#39;s in-home equipment. The online guide may control the user&#39;s equipment directly, or by communicating with a media guidance application on the user&#39;s in-home equipment. Various systems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where the user equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, is discussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issued Oct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. 
     In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outside a home can use their media guidance application to communicate directly with content source  416  to access content. Specifically, within a home, users of user television equipment  402  and user computer equipment  404  may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locate desirable content. Users may also access the media guidance application outside of the home using wireless user communications devices  406  to navigate among and locate desirable content. 
     In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloud computing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computing environment, various types of computing services for content sharing, storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networking sites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing and storage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloud can include a collection of server computing devices, which may be located centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-based services to various types of users and devices connected via a network such as the Internet via communications network  414 . These cloud resources may include one or more content sources  416  and one or more media guidance data sources  418 . In addition or in the alternative, the remote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such as user television equipment  402 , user computer equipment  404 , and wireless user communications device  406 . For example, the other user equipment devices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamed video. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in a peer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server. 
     The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, content sharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well as access to any content described above, for user equipment devices. Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing service providers, or through other providers of online services. For example, the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, a content sharing site, a social networking site, or other services via which user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others on connected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipment device to store content to the cloud and to receive content from the cloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-stored content. 
     A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders, digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, and handheld computing devices, to record content. The user can upload content to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, for example, from user computer equipment  404  or wireless user communications device  406  having content capture feature. Alternatively, the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, such as user computer equipment  404 . The user equipment device storing the content uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmission service on communications network  414 . In some embodiments, the user equipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipment devices can access the content directly from the user equipment device on which the user stored the content. 
     Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, for example, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktop application, a mobile application, and/or any combination of access applications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloud client that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or the user equipment device may have some functionality without access to cloud resources. For example, some applications running on the user equipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications delivered as a service over the Internet, while other applications may be stored and run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user device may receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. For example, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource while downloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device can download content from multiple cloud resources for more efficient downloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloud resources for processing operations such as the processing operations performed by processing circuitry described in relation to  FIG. 3 . 
     As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as a result of. For example, a first action being performed in response to another action may include interstitial steps between the first action and the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly in response to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action being performed directly in response to another action may not include interstitial steps between the first action and the second action. 
       FIGS. 5 and 6  present an algorithm for control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry  304 ) to determine a level of certainty in assigning characteristics to media assets in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. In some embodiments this algorithm may be encoded on to non-transitory storage medium (e.g., storage device  308 ) as a set of instructions to be decoded and executed by processing circuitry (e.g., processing circuitry  306 ). Processing circuitry may in turn provide instructions to other sub-circuits contained within control circuitry  304 , such as the tuning, video generating, encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaling, analog/digital conversion circuitry, and the like. 
     The flowchart in  FIG. 5  describes an algorithm for control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry  304 ) to guarantee a level of certainty above a specified threshold in assigning characteristics to media assets in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. 
     At step  502 , control circuitry  304  determines certainty levels will begin based on receiving media assets which need to be tagged. In some embodiments, this may be done either directly or indirectly in response to a user action or input (e.g., from signals received by control circuitry  304  or user input interface  310 ). For example, process  500  may begin directly in response to control circuitry  304  receiving signals from user input interface  310 , or control circuitry  304  may prompt the user to confirm their input using a display (e.g., by generating a prompt to be displayed on display  312 ) prior to running process  500 . 
     At step  504 , control circuitry  304  proceeds to retrieve the next instance of a characteristic from stored memory. In some embodiments control circuitry  304  may receive a single primitive data structure that represents the value of characteristics. In some embodiments the value may be stored as part of a larger data structure, and control circuitry  304  may retrieve the value by executing appropriate accessor methods to retrieve the value from the larger data structure. 
     At step  506 , control circuitry  304  proceeds to compare the value of characteristics to the stored value of a certainty threshold. In some embodiments, the value of certainty threshold may be stored (e.g., on storage device  308 ) prior to beginning the algorithm. In some embodiments the value of a certainty threshold may also be retrieved for each and every instance of characteristics, and the value of a certainty threshold may change from iteration to iteration. In some embodiments, control circuitry  304  may directly compare the value of a certainty threshold with the value of characteristics by accessing the values respectively from memory and performing a value comparison. In some instances, control circuitry  304  may call a comparison function (e.g., for object to object comparison) to compare characteristics and a certainty threshold. 
     At step  508 , control circuitry  304  compares the values of characteristics and a certainty threshold to determine if the value of characteristics is greater or equal to the value of a certainty threshold. If the condition is satisfied, process  500  may proceed to step  510 ; if the condition is not satisfied, the process  500  may proceed to step  512  instead. 
     At step  510 , control circuitry  304  will execute a subroutine to confirm the characteristic for the media asset based on the condition at step  508  being satisfied. After the subroutine is executed, the process  500  may proceed to step  518  where it is determined if all instances of characteristics are accounted for and further iterations are needed. 
     At step  512 , control circuitry  304  compares the values of characteristics and a certainty threshold to determine if the value of characteristics is less than the value of a certainty threshold. If the condition is satisfied, the process  500  may proceed to step  514 ; if the condition is not satisfied, process  500  may proceed to step  516  instead. 
     At step  516 , control circuitry  304  will execute a subroutine to have human curators confirm or modify the characteristic based on both of the conditions in  508  and  512  not being satisfied. After the subroutine is executed, the process  500  may proceed to  518  where it is determined if all instances of characteristics are accounted for and if further iterations are needed. 
     At step  518 , control circuitry  304  will check if all instances of characteristics are accounted for. If all of the instances have been evaluated, control circuitry  304  may proceed to step  520 . For example, control circuitry  304  may call a function to see if there is a next element of characteristics. If the function returns true (i.e., there are still instances that need to be processed), control circuitry  304  may proceed to step  504 . 
     At step  520 , control circuitry  304  will execute a subroutine to search for new media assets to assign characteristics. 
     It is contemplated that the descriptions of  FIG. 5  may be used with any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the descriptions described in relation to the process  500  of  FIG. 5  may be done in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. For example, conditional statements and logical evaluations, such as those at  508  and  512 , may be performed in any order or in parallel or simultaneously to reduce lag or increase the speed of the system or method. As a further example, in some embodiments several instances of characteristics may be evaluated in parallel, using multiple logical processor threads, or the process  500  may be enhanced by incorporating branch prediction. Furthermore, it should be noted that process  500  of  FIG. 5  may be implemented on a combination of appropriately configured software and hardware, and that any of the devices or equipment discussed in relation to  FIGS. 3-4  could be used to implement one or more portions of the process  500 . 
     The pseudocode in  FIG. 6  describes an algorithm to determine whether a characteristic of a media asset needs to be confirmed or modified in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. It will be evident to one skilled in the art that the algorithm described by the pseudocode in  FIG. 6  may be implemented in any number of programming languages and a variety of different hardware, and that the style and format should not be construed as limiting, but rather a general template of the steps and procedures that would be consistent with code used to implement some embodiments of this disclosure. 
     At line  601 , control circuitry  304  may run a subroutine to initialize variables and prepare to determine whether the characteristic may be confirmed or modified, which begins on line  605 . For example, in some embodiments control circuitry  304  may copy instructions from non-transitory storage medium (e.g., storage device  308 ) into RAM or into the cache for processing circuitry  306  during the initialization stage. Additionally, in some embodiments the value of a certainty threshold being used for comparison, or a tolerance level for determining if two values are essentially equivalent, may be retrieved, set, and stored at  601 . 
     At line  605 , control circuitry  304  may receive instances of characteristics. In some embodiments these instances may be retrieved from stored memory. Control circuitry  304  may receive instances of characteristics by receiving, for example, a pointer to an array of values of characteristics. In another example, control circuitry  304  may receive an object of a class, such as an iterator object containing elements of characteristics. 
     At line  606 , control circuitry  304  may iterate through the various instances of characteristics, if only a single instance is available, the loop will only execute once. This loop may be implemented in multiple fashions depending on the choice of hardware and software language used to implement the algorithm of  FIG. 6 ; for example, this may be implemented as part of a “for” or “while” loop. 
     At line  607 , control circuitry  304  will store the value of characteristics into a temporary variable “A.” In some embodiments the value of characteristics will be stored as part of a larger data structure or class, and the value of characteristics may be obtained through appropriate accessor methods. In some embodiments characteristics may be converted from a string or other non-numeric data type into a numeric data type by means of an appropriate hashing algorithm. In some embodiments, control circuitry  304  may call a function to perform a comparison of characteristics to a certainty threshold. In some embodiments characteristics may be encoded as a primitive data structure, and rather than using a temporary variable, characteristics may be directly used in the comparisons at lines  609  and  611 . 
     At line  608 , control circuitry  304  will store the value of a certainty threshold into a temporary variable “B.” Similar to characteristics, in some embodiments the value of a certainty threshold will be stored as part of a larger data structure or class, and the value of a certainty threshold may be obtained through accessor methods. In some embodiments a certainty threshold may be converted from a string or other non-numeric data type into a numeric data type by means of control circuitry  304  executing an appropriate hashing algorithm, or a certainty threshold may be a primitive data structure, and may be directly used in the comparisons at lines  609  and  611 . 
     At line  609 , control circuitry  304  compares the value of A to the value of B to see if they are essentially equivalent. This is achieved by subtracting the value of B from A, taking the absolute value of the difference, and then comparing the absolute value of the difference to a predetermined tolerance level. In some embodiments the tolerance level may be a set percentage of either A or B. In some embodiments the tolerance level may be a fixed number. For example, setting the tolerance level to a set multiple of machine epsilon may allow for the control circuitry  304  to account for small rounding errors that may result from the use of floating point arithmetic. In some embodiments the tolerance level may be set to zero, or the condition inside the IF statement may be replaced with a strict equivalence between A and B. 
     At line  610 , control circuitry  304  will execute a subroutine to determine default characteristic approval settings using control circuitry if the condition in line  609  is satisfied. In some embodiments this may be achieved by processing circuitry  306  sending the appropriate signals to control circuitry. 
     At line  611 , control circuitry  304  will compare the value of A and B to determine if A is less than B. In some embodiments this comparison will only be done if A is not essentially equivalent to B and the comparison in line  609  evaluates to FALSE. 
     At line  612 , control circuitry  304  will execute a subroutine to confirm the characteristic for the media asset using control circuitry if the condition in line  611  is satisfied. 
     At line  613 , control circuitry  304  will determine whether neither condition in line  609  or  611  are satisfied. If neither condition is satisfied, then the instruction at line  614  may be evaluated and executed. 
     At line  614 , control circuitry  304  will execute a subroutine to have human curators confirm or modify the characteristics using control circuitry if neither of the conditions at lines  609  or  611  are satisfied. 
     At line  616 , control circuitry  304  may run a termination subroutine after the control circuitry  304  has performed the algorithm of  FIG. 6 . For example, in some embodiments control circuitry  304  may destruct variables, perform garbage collection, free memory or clear the cache of processing circuitry  306 . 
     It will be evident to one skilled in the art that the algorithm described by the pseudocode in  FIG. 6  may be implemented in any number of programming languages and a variety of different hardware, and the particular choice and location of primitive functions, logical evaluations, and function evaluations are not intended to be limiting. It will also be evident that the code may be refactored or rewritten to manipulate the order of the various logical evaluations, perform several iterations in parallel rather than in a single iterative loop, or to otherwise manipulate and optimize run-time and performance metrics without fundamentally changing the inputs or final outputs. For example, in some embodiments break conditions may be placed after lines  610  and  612  to speed operation, or the conditional statements may be replaced with a case-switch. In some embodiments, rather than iterating over all instances of characteristics at step  506 , in some embodiments the code may be rewritten so control circuitry  304  is instructed to evaluate multiple instances of characteristics simultaneously on a plurality of processors or processor threads, lowering the number of iterations needed and potentially speeding up computation time. 
       FIGS. 7 and 8  present an algorithm for control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry  304 ) to determine media assets matching video feed criterion using a database containing possible values of video feed characteristics in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Similar to the algorithms described by  FIGS. 5 and 6 , in some embodiments control circuitry  304  may encode this algorithm on to non-transitory storage medium (e.g., storage device  308 ) as a set of instructions to be decoded and executed by processing circuitry (e.g., processing circuitry  306 ). Processing circuitry may in turn provide instructions to other sub-circuits contained within control circuitry  304 , such as the tuning, video generating, encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaling, analog/digital conversion circuitry, and the like. 
     The flowchart in  FIG. 7  describes a process  700  for control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry  304 ) to search a database and determine characteristics of media assets in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. 
     At step  702 , the control circuitry  304  searches a database and determines characteristics of media assets may begin based on receiving media assets. In some embodiments, this may be done either directly or indirectly in response to a user action or input (e.g., from signals received by control circuitry  304  or user input interface  310 ), for example in response to a user request for a personalized video-feed. 
     At step  704 , control circuitry  304  may proceed to retrieve the next instance of a user-specified criterion from stored memory. In some embodiments control circuitry  304  may retrieve a single primitive data structure that represents the value of the user-specified criterion. In some embodiments control circuitry  304  may retrieve the value from a larger class or data structure. 
     At step  706 , control circuitry  304  accesses a database containing possible values or tags for user-specified criterion. In some embodiments, this database may be stored locally (e.g., on storage device  308 ) prior to beginning the process  700 . In some embodiments the database may also be accessed by using communications circuitry to transmit information across a communications network (e.g., communications network  414 ) to a database implemented on a remote storage device (e.g., media guidance data source  418 ). 
     At step  708 , control circuitry  304  may search database tables for entries matching the user-specified criterion. In some embodiments this may be done by comparing an identifier, for example a string, integer or tag representing a user-defined criterion, that matches the types of identifiers used inside the database. In some embodiments control circuitry  304  may submit a general query to the database for table entries matching user-specified criterion, and control circuitry  304  may receive a list of indices or a data structure containing a portion of the database contents. In some embodiments the database may implement a junction table that in turn cross-references entries from other databases. In this case, control circuitry  304  may retrieve indices from a first database that in turn can be used to retrieve information from a second database. Although we may describe control circuitry  304  interacting with a single database for purposes of clarity, it is understood that the process  700  of  FIG. 7  may be implemented using multiple independent or cross-referenced databases. 
     At step  710 , control circuitry  304  may determine if there are database entries matching user-specified criterion for a requested video feed. In some embodiments control circuitry  304  may receive a signal from the database indicating that there are no matching entries. In some embodiments control circuitry  304  may instead receive a list of indices or data structures with a NULL or dummy value. If control circuitry  304  identifies that there are database entries matching the user-specified criterion the process  700  may proceed to step  712 , otherwise the process  700  proceeds to step  714 . 
     At step  712 , control circuitry  304  may execute a subroutine to indicate that a media asset is a match with some entries and should be added to the requested video-feed. Afterwards, the process  700  may proceed to step  720  where it is determined if there are further instances of user-defined criterion that need to be accounted for. 
     At step  718 , control circuitry  304  will execute a subroutine to continue monitoring received media assets for user-specified criterion after determining that there were no matching database entries for user-specified criterion. Afterwards, the process  700  may proceed to step  720 . 
     At step  720 , control circuitry  304  will determine if all instances of user-specified criterion are accounted for and if further iterations are needed. If further iterations are needed the process  700  will loop back to step  704  where control circuitry  304  will retrieve the next instance of user-specified criterion. If no further iterations are needed the process  700  will proceed to step  722 . 
     At step  722 , control circuitry  304  will execute a subroutine to search for additional received media assets. 
     It is contemplated that the descriptions of  FIG. 7  may be used with any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the descriptions described in relation to the process  700  of  FIG. 7  may be done in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. For example, control circuitry  304  may submit multiple queries to the database in parallel, or it may submit multiple queries to a plurality of similar databases in order to reduce lag and speed the execution of the process  700 . As a further example, although step  712  and step  716  are described as being mutually exclusive, both exact entries and similar entries may be processed for a single instance of user-specified criterion. To further this purpose, in some embodiments step  710  and step  714  may be performed in parallel by control circuitry  304 . Furthermore, it should be noted that the process  700  of  FIG. 7  may be implemented on a combination of appropriately configured software and hardware, and that any of the devices or equipment discussed in relation to  FIGS. 3-4  could be used to implement one or more portions of the process  700 . 
     The pseudocode in  FIG. 8  describes an algorithm to search a database for characteristics based on user-specified criterion in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. It will be evident to one skilled in the art that the algorithm described by the pseudocode in  FIG. 8  may be implemented in any number of programming languages and a variety of different hardware, and that the style and format should not be construed as limiting, but rather a general template of the steps and procedures that would be consistent with code used to implement some embodiments of this disclosure. 
     At line  801 , the control circuitry  304  may run a subroutine to initialize variables and prepare to match user-specified criterion and media asset characteristics, which begins on line  805 . For example, in some embodiments control circuitry  304  may copy instructions from non-transitory storage medium (e.g., storage device  308 ) into RAM or into the cache for processing circuitry  306  during the initialization stage. 
     At line  805 , control circuitry  304  may receive instances of user-specified criterion. In some embodiments these instances may be retrieved from user input. 
     At line  806 , control circuitry  304  may iterate through the various instances of user-specified criterion; if only a single instance is available, the loop will only execute once. This loop may be implemented in multiple fashions depending on the choice of hardware and software language used to implement the algorithm of  FIG. 8 ; for example, this may be implemented as part of a “for” or “while” loop, in some programming languages. In some embodiments it may be convenient to store the instances of user-specified criterion in a single class or encapsulated data structure that will perform the loop as part of an internal method. 
     At line  807 , control circuitry  304  may query a database for entries matching user-specified criterion. Depending on how the database is implemented and how user-specified criterion are stored, an intermittent step may be required to convert user-specified criterion into a form consistent with the database. For example, user-specified criterion may be encoded into a string or an integer by control circuitry  304  using an appropriate hashing algorithm prior to being transmitted to the database by control circuitry  304  as part of a query. In some embodiments user-specified criterion may be encoded as a primitive data structure, and control circuitry  304  may submit user-specified criterion as a query to the database directly. After querying the database, control circuitry  304  may receive a set of database entries matching user-specified criterion. In some embodiments control circuitry  304  may receive these entries in the form of a data-structure, a set of indices of the database, or a set of indices of another cross-referenced database. 
     At line  808 , control circuitry  304  will determine if there are any database entries matching user-specified criterion. In some embodiments control circuitry  304  may determine this by checking if the database returned an empty data structure or a NULL value in response to the query in line  807 . If there are matching database entries the control circuitry  304  may proceed to line  809 . If there were no matching database entries the control circuitry  304  may instead proceed to execute line  812 . 
     At line  809 , control circuitry  304  may retrieve one or more values of characteristics from the database entries matching user-specified criterion. For example, if control circuitry  304  retrieves a list of indices after querying the database in line  807 , in some embodiments control circuitry  304  may retrieve the database entries for characteristics located at the received indices. In some embodiments the indices may point to a larger data structure contained within the database, and control circuitry  304  may retrieve the values of characteristics from within the data structure using appropriate accessor methods. In some embodiments control circuitry  304  may retrieve the values of characteristics and store them in a separate data structure locally (e.g., in storage  308 ) prior to proceeding further. After retrieving the values of characteristics the control circuitry  304  will proceed to execute line  810 . 
     At line  810 , control circuitry  304  will execute a subroutine to use the values of characteristics and indicate that the media asset is a match for the user-specified criterion using control circuitry. Afterwards, the control circuitry  304  may proceed to execute line  815 . 
     At line  814 , control circuitry  304  will execute a subroutine to continue monitoring the media assets using control circuitry if neither of the conditions at lines  809  or  811  are satisfied. 
     At line  815 , control circuitry  304  will execute a subroutine to search for additional media assets using control circuitry. Afterwards, the control circuitry  304  may proceed to execute the termination subroutine at line  817 . 
     At line  817 , control circuitry  304  may execute a termination subroutine after the control circuitry  304  has performed the algorithm of  FIG. 8  and all instances of user-specified criterion have been processed and checked against the database. For example, in some embodiments control circuitry  304  may destruct variables, perform garbage collection, free memory or clear the cache of processing circuitry  306 . 
     It will be evident to one skilled in the art that the algorithm described by the pseudocode in  FIG. 8  may be implemented in any number of programming languages and a variety of different hardware, and the particular choice and location of primitive functions, logical evaluations, and function evaluations are not intended to be limiting. It will also be evident that the code may be refactored or rewritten to manipulate the order of the various logical evaluations, perform several iterations in parallel rather than in a single iterative loop, or to otherwise manipulate and optimize run-time and performance metrics without fundamentally changing the inputs or final outputs. For example, in some embodiments the code may be re-written so control circuitry  304  is instructed to evaluate multiple instances of user-specified criterion and submit multiple database queries simultaneously using a plurality of processors or processor threads. It is also understood that although we may describe control circuitry  304  interacting with a single database, this is only a single embodiment described for illustrative purposes, and the algorithm of  FIG. 8 . may be implemented using multiple independent or cross-referenced databases. For example, a database stored locally (e.g., on storage  308 ) may index or cross-reference a database stored remotely (e.g., media guidance data source  418 ), which may be accessible through any number of communication channels (e.g., communications network  414 ). In some embodiments, this may allow control circuitry  304  to utilize a look-up table or database front-end efficiently stored on a small local drive to access a larger database stored on a remote server on demand. 
       FIG. 9  show an illustrative media guidance application for requesting video-feeds in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. 
     A display device  900  includes a main display area  905  and an additional display area  910 . The additional display area  910  may be located anywhere within the main display area  905 . In one embodiment, a media asset previously generated for display for a user in the main display area  905  may be generated for display in the picture-in-picture additional display area  910 , while menu elements  920 ,  922  and  924  may be generated for display over a fixed background. In alternative embodiments elements  920 ,  922  and  924  may be generated for display as an overlay over a media asset generated for display in main display area  905 , and there may not be an additional display area  910 . In the exemplary embodiment of  FIG. 9  display element  920  indicates a menu screen intended to personalize video feeds. The menu shown in  FIG. 9  may be a separate menu option, to which a user can navigate. In alternative embodiments, the menu of  FIG. 9  may be a sub-menu or option available within a user profile. 
     Elements  922  may be radio buttons indicating media characteristics. In the exemplary embodiment of  FIG. 9  elements  922  include content rating elements (“PG13” and “R”), theme characteristics (“Comedy” and “Drama”), and genre characteristics (“Sports,” “News,” and “Commercials”). In alternative embodiments, elements  922  may be selectable options. In an alternative embodiment, a user may select an element  922  and access a sub-menu. For example, a user may select selectable option  922  “Comedy” and the media guidance application may generate for display an additional screen with listings of different types of comedies or other characteristics (“Romantic Comedy,” “Dramatic Comedy” “1950s” “Johnny Depp,” “Foreign,” etc.). Element  924  provides a “Custom” option which may allow a user to create new characteristics or tags, as shown in  FIG. 10 . 
       FIG. 10  show an illustrative media guidance application for requesting video-feeds in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. A display device  1000  includes a main display area  1005  and an additional display area  1010 . The additional display area  1010  may be located anywhere within the main display area  1005 . In one embodiment, a media asset previously generate for display for a user in the main display area  1005  may be generated for display in the picture-in-picture additional display area  1010 , while menu elements  1020 ,  1022 , and  1024  may be generated for display over a fixed background. In alternative embodiments elements  1020 ,  1022  and  1204  may be generated for display as an overlay over a media asset generated for display in main display area  1005 , and there may not be an additional display area  1010 . In the exemplary embodiment of  FIG. 10 , display element  1020  indicates a menu screen intended to personalize video feeds. In alternative embodiments, display element  1020  may indicate a different customization level than the display element  920  in  FIG. 9 . 
     The menu shown in  FIG. 10  may be a separate menu option, to which a user can navigate. In alternative embodiments, the menu of  FIG. 10  may be a sub-menu or option available within a user profile. Elements  1022  may be radio buttons indicating pre-determined media characteristics provide by the media guidance application. In the exemplary embodiment of  FIG. 10  element  1022  includes a pre-defined “actor” characteristic of “Tom Cruise.” In the exemplary embodiment of  FIG. 10 , element  1024  may be a customizable option for a user to define a new characteristic. For example, a user may select element  1024 , and the media guidance application may generate for display pop-up window  1026 . In alternative embodiments, pop-up window  1026  may be a full-screen display. 
     In the exemplary embodiment of  FIG. 10 , pop-up window  1026  may include a message (“Please select or enter a tag”) along with two selectable options, options  1028  and  1030 . In this exemplary embodiment, element  1028  is a “select” option, and element  1030  is an “enter” option. In this exemplary embodiment, when a user selects element  1028 , a user may be able to search for and select a characteristic or tag, for example by searching through a wider range of characteristic categories. Alternatively, when a user selects element  1030 , a user may be able to enter and define a new characteristic or tag, for example by typing in the name of the characteristic or tag. In alternative embodiments, the media guidance application may allow the user to define new characteristics or tags by combining existing pre-defined and/or user-defined tags. For example, a user could define the characteristic “Silly Hockey” by combining characteristics such as “Hockey” “Bloopers” “kids” and “funny.” 
       FIG. 11  is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in requesting video-feeds, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process  1100  or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of the devices shown in  FIGS. 3-5 . For example, process  1100  may be executed by control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ) as instructed by a media guidance application implemented on a user device  316  ( FIG. 3 ) in order to enhance the viewing experience of a user. In addition, one or more steps of process  1100  may be incorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any other process or embodiment. 
     At step  1110 , the media guidance application receives, via control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ), a video feed request from a user device. For example, Sarah may request from her set-top box a video feed for an “R-rated” feed of “stadium fans” having “fun” at the Colts-Patriots game. 
     At step  1120 , the media guidance application (e.g., implemented on illustrative user equipment device  300  ( FIG. 3 )) detects, via control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ), content capture devices. For example, the media guidance application may detect that John is at Gillette Stadium and streaming video on his cell phone, that Cassie is also at Gillette stadium and streaming video from her i-Pad, and that the channel covering the game has a camera dedicated to shots of the audience. 
     At step  1130 , the media guidance application (e.g., implemented on illustrative user equipment device  300  ( FIG. 3 )) acquires, via control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ), video assets from the detected content capture devices. For example, the media guidance application acquires video assets (including audio and video) from John&#39;s cell phone, Cassie&#39;s I-Pad and the game coverage audience camera. 
     At step  1135 , the media guidance application (e.g., implemented on illustrative user equipment device  300  ( FIG. 3 )) detects, via control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ), characteristics of the video asset. For example, the media guidance application may determine that a characteristic of the video feed from Cassie&#39;s i-Pad is “boring” because no movement is detected and Cassie is merely recording a feed showing the scoreboard. In the same example, the media guidance application may determine that the video from John&#39;s cell phone is “cool” and “young” because John appears to be rapping and John appears to be a 19-21 year old male. In the same example, the media guidance application may determine that some segments of the feed from the audience camera show “drinking” and “crazy fans” because fans are drinking and/or jumping up and down. 
     At step  1140 , the media guidance application (e.g., implemented on illustrative user equipment device  300  ( FIG. 3 )) determines, via control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ), if a characteristic of a video asset has been identified beyond a pre-determined certainty threshold. For example, the media guidance application may determine whether Cassie&#39;s video feed has been correctly identified as “boring” with at least 50% certainty. If a characteristic has been identified beyond a pre-determined certainty threshold, the method proceeds to step  1160 . If a characteristic has not been identified beyond a pre-determined certainty threshold, the method proceeds to step  1150 . 
     At step  1150 , the media guidance application (e.g., implemented on illustrative user equipment device  300  ( FIG. 3 )) sends, via control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ), the video asset to a human curator to confirm or modify the characteristic previously identified and assigned to the video asset. For example, if the certainty level associated with the “boring” characteristic for Cassie&#39;s feed is only 40%, the media guidance application may send Cassie&#39;s feed to a clearing house where human curators can review the feed and confirm or correct the characteristic. For example, a human curator may confirm that Cassie&#39;s feed is indeed “boring.” Alternatively, the human curator may decide that Cassie&#39;s feed is “Not Boring,” and the human curator may also indicate additional characteristics of Cassie&#39;s feed, for example “useful” because it is showing the scoreboard. The human curator may also add additional tags such as “scoreboard” or “TomBradyRocks” which may be an identifier of a human curator, as described above. 
     At step  1160 , the media guidance application (e.g., implemented on illustrative user equipment device  300  ( FIG. 3 )) assigns, via control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ), to the video asset a content tag corresponding to the identified characteristic. For example, the media guidance application may assign the content tag “boring” if Cassie&#39;s feed was confirmed as boring. Alternatively, the media guidance application may assign the tags indicated by the human-curator (e.g., “scoreboard” and “TomBradyRocks”) to Cassie&#39;s feed. 
     At step  1170 , the media guidance application (e.g., implemented on illustrative user equipment device  300  ( FIG. 3 )) determines, via control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ) requested video feed criterion. For example, at this step the media guidance application may process the initial video feed request from Sarah and determine that her criterion for the video feed are “R-rated” “stadium fans,” “fun” and “Colts-Patriots”. 
     At step  1180 , the media guidance application (e.g., implemented on illustrative user equipment device  300  ( FIG. 3 )) accesses, via control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ) a database, located in storage  308  ( FIG. 3 ) of criterion and associated characteristics. For example, the media guidance application may access a database cross-referencing video feed criterion and associated media characteristics. For example, the media guidance application may indicate that for the criterion “fun” and “R-rated” the corresponding characteristics include “cool” “young” and “crazy fans.” 
     At step  1190 , the media guidance application (e.g., implemented on illustrative user equipment device  300  ( FIG. 3 )) determines, via control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ), if there is a match between the determined requested video feed criterion and the content tags and associated identified characteristics of the video asset. For example, the media guidance application may determine that the video feed from John&#39;s device has characteristics “cool,” “young” and “crazy fans” which match the video feed criterion for the video feed request from Sarah “fun” and “R-rated.”If there is a match, the method proceeds to step  1195 . If there is no match, the method returns to step  1130  and continues to acquire video assets. 
     At step  1195 , the media guidance application (e.g., implemented on illustrative user equipment device  300  ( FIG. 3 )) adds, via control circuitry  304  ( FIG. 3 ), the matching video asset to the requested video feed. For example, the media guidance application will include the media asset or portions of the media asset from John&#39;s device to a video feed generated for display on Sarah&#39;s device, for example in a picture-in-picture window while Sarah watches the Colts-Patriots game on a main area of her display device. 
     It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of  FIG. 11  may be used with any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps and descriptions described in relation to  FIG. 11  may be done in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. For example, each of these steps may be performed in any order or in parallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase the speed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should be noted that any of the devices or equipment discussed in relation to  FIGS. 3-4  could be used to perform one or more of the steps in  FIG. 11 . 
     The above-described embodiments of the present disclosure are presented for purposes of illustration and not of limitation, and the present disclosure is limited only by the claims that follow. Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitations described in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodiment herein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may be combined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done in different orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems and methods described herein may be performed in real time. It should also be noted, the systems and/or methods described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.