Patent ID: 8600216

Claim:
A method to insert audience measurement data in a compressed media data stream, the method comprising: rearranging data in frames of the compressed media data stream to form contiguous sequences of skip bytes at respective locations in the frames of the compressed media data stream, the audience measurement data to be inserted in the compressed media data stream at the locations of the contiguous sequences of skip bytes, the contiguous sequences of skip bytes having respective lengths; and inserting different types of audience measurement data at the locations of the contiguous sequences of skip bytes in two different frames of the compressed media data stream based on the respective lengths of the contiguous sequences of skip bytes in the two different frames of the compressed media data stream, wherein inserting the different types of audience measurement data comprises: formatting the audience measurement data into payload segments corresponding to the different types of audience measurement data; inserting a first sequence of the payload segments in a first frame of the compressed media data stream based on a length of a first contiguous sequence of skip bytes in the first frame; and inserting a second sequence of the payload segments in a second frame of the compressed media data stream based on a length of a second contiguous sequence of skip bytes in the second frame, the length of the second contiguous sequence of skip bytes being different from the length of the first contiguous sequence of skip bytes.