Patent Document ID: 8898689
Application ID: 13382559
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method at a multimedia distribution network of estimating a present user constellation of a household, the method comprising: monitoring a sequence of textual descriptors that are associated with a multimedia sequence that is being distributed to the household, wherein the sequence of textual descriptors is determined from subtitle information and is distributed to the household in a stream along with a stream of associated multimedia content; acquiring, from a storing unit, a set of probabilistic parameters of a statistical model that is based on a plurality of sequences of textual descriptors that have previously been provided to the household; and estimating a present user constellation by correlating the monitored sequence of textual descriptors being distributed with the probabilistic parameters of the statistical model, wherein the statistical model is determined by executing the following steps: acquiring the plurality of sequences of textual descriptors that have previously been provided, monitored and stored, each sequence of textual descriptors being associated with and determined from subtitle information of a multimedia sequence that has previously been provided to the household and representing a sequence of observations; performing a statistical analysis on the acquired plurality of sequences of textual descriptors that have previously been provided, such that the statistical model, defined by a finite number, N, of most likely user constellations representing a sequence of hidden states, and the set of probabilistic parameters associated with state transitions of the most likely user constellations, is generated; and storing the probabilistic parameters that define the statistical model.