Concurrent Patent Inserts Advertising In DVR And VOD Content
Orange County – It appears the days of avoiding commercials by fast forwarding through them using Video On-Demand (VOD) or a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) may be nearing an end. Concurrent, a video and media data solutions company, has been issued a patent (US 8,079,052) from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for advertisement insertion into VOD, DVR, and time-shifted TV when using trick functions such as fast forward or rewind. Trick files are enabled into VOD, DVR, and time-shifted television to allow consumers to fast forward and rewind through programming. Concurrent’s technology allows ad content to be inserted into those trick files while consumers are controlling the fast forward or rewind functions.
Advertisers and marketers will likely embrace this technology to prevent advertising dollars from being lost and to provide new opportunities to market to consumers. For cable providers, this technology provides a way to preserve advertising revenue without restricting consumers’ control of television programming.
Bob Chism, chief technology officer for Concurrent, lauded the new technology and stated, “thanks to our R&D team’s vision and diligence, our customers will have a new way to generate revenue through video advertising, and to address advertisers’ desire to preserve ad viewership. We believe network DVR services will be embraced by operators as a core multiscreen service offering, an area in which Concurrent is an innovative leader.”
Concurrent has stated that they will consider licensing this technology on a case-by-case basis. To the chagrin of consumers of VOD and DVR, they may have to find alternative ways to avoid commercials.