EP0210609A2
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EP
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Broadcast program identification method and apparatus
Assignee: TNC US Holdings Inc
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Filing: 1986-07-25
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2006-07-25
Abstract
Abstract A method and apparatus for identifying repetitively broadcast programs, such as commercial advertisements broadcast on television and radio, detects the occurrence of predetermined events in a video signal and/or in an audio signal, detects a stability condition and extracts a signature from the video and/or audio signal. The signatures and the times of occurrence of the signatures are stored and subsequently compared with reference signatures to identify the program and its time of broadcast. The reference signatures may be obtained by identifying repetitively extracted, unidentified signatures and indexing a recording of the video and/or audio signals to enable the system user to identify the unidentified broadcast program and store the previously unidentified signatures as additional reference signatures in memory.
Inventors
- 👤 John G. Lert, Jr.
- 👤 Daozheng Lu
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-10-24 17:09
CPC Classifications
H; H04; H04H; H04H20/00; H04H20/28; G; G06; G06V; G06V20/00; G06V20/40; H04H60/00; H04H60/35; H04H60/37; H04H60/56; H04H60/58; H04H60/59; H04N; H04N5/00; H04N5/76; H04N5/765; H04N7/00; H04N7/08; H04N7/087; H04N7/088; H04N7/0887
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 20
Claim 1
Independent Claim
65 words
A system for identifying a plurality of defined broadcast programs in a signal utilizing signature extraction, characterized by: means for detecting the occurrence of a predetermined event in the signal; means for detecting the occurrence of a stability condition in the signal after the occurrence of said predetermined events; and means for extracting the signature from the signal after the occurrence of said stability condition.
Claim 2
Independent Claim
65 words
A system for identifying a plurality of defined broadcast programs in a signal utilizing signature extraction, characterized by: means for detecting the occurrence of a predetermined event in the signal; means for detecting the occurrence of a stability condition in the signal after the occurrence of said predetermined events; and means for extracting the signature from the signal after the occurrence of said stability condition.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
42 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein the signal is a television broadcast signal and said predetermined event detecting means includes means for detecting a slow scene change from one video scene to another video scene in the television video signal.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
41 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein the signal is a television broadcast signal and said predetermined event detecting means includes means for detecting a blank frame having silent audio followed by a non-blank frame in the television video signal.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
34 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein the signal is a television broadcast signal and said predetermined event detecting means includes means for detecting a predetermined magnitude change in the television audio signal.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
39 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein the signal is a television broadcast signal and said predetermined event detecting means includes means for detecting a predetermined amplitude change in a selected color component of the television video signal.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
32 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein said predetermined event detecting means includes means for detecting the elapse of a predetermined time period after the occurrence of a previous predetermined event.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
17 words
The system as recited in claim 6 wherein said predetermined time period is approximately 3 -10 seconds.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
34 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein the signal is a radio broadcast signal and said predetermined event detecting means includes means for detecting a predetermined change in magnitude of the radio signal.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
84 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein the signal is a television broadcast signal and said means for detecting the occurrence of said predetermined event includes means for low pass filtering the video signal to produce a video envelope signal, means for periodically sampling said video envelope signal to provide a series of video samples, and means for comparing said video samples and a predetermined threshold value to indicate a blank frame wherein said video samples are less than said predetermined threshold value.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
27 words
The system as recited in claim 9 wherein said means for low pass filtering the video signal has a frequency response of approximately 0 to 2 kHz.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
60 words
The system as recited in claim 9 wherein the means for sampling said video envelope signal includes means for taking a predetermined number of samples of said video envelope signal and means for taking the average of predetermined consecutive samples to generate a plurality of average signals, each average signal defining one of the features that comprises a feature string.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
99 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein the signal is a television broadcast signal and said means for detecting the occurrence of said predetermined event includes means for low pass filtering the video signal to provide a video envelope signal, means for periodically sampling said video envelope signal to provide a series of video samples and means for comparing said series of video samples to a previous series of video samples to indicate a slow scene change predetermined event wherein the absolute value of the difference of said series of samples is greater than a predetermined threshold value.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
27 words
The system as recited in claim 12 wherein said means for low pass filtering said video signal has a frequency response of approximately 0 to 2 kHz.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim
69 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein said means for detecting the occurrence of said pre-determined event includes means for processing said audio spectrum signal to provide a plurality of audio spectrum signals, and means for digitizing said audio spectrum signals, and comparing said digitized audio spectrum signals to previously produced digitized audio spectrum signals to indicate a predetermined event wherein a predetermined change in magnitude is detected.
Claim 16
Dependent Claim
27 words
The system as recited in claim 14 wherein the step of processing said audio signal is provided in the range of approximately 330 Hz to 2.54 kHz.
Claim 17
Dependent Claim
98 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein said means for extracting a signature from the broadcast to be identified includes means for low pass filtering a video signal to provide a video envelope signal, means for periodically sampling said video envelope signal to provide a series of video samples, means for digitizing said video samples to provide a video signature, means for processing an audio signal to provide a plurality of audio spectrum signals, means for digitizing said audio spectrum signals to provide an audio signature, and means for combining said video signature and said video signature.
Claim 18
Dependent Claim
54 words
The system as recited in claim 16 wherein said means for combining said video signature and said audio signature includes means for defining a first feature string representative of said video signature, means for defining a second feature string representative of said audio signature, and means for concatenating said first and second feature strings.
Claim 19
Dependent Claim
99 words
The system as recited in claim 1 wherein said means for detecting the occurrence of a stabiliity condition includes; means for low pass filtering a video signal to provide a video envelope signal; means for periodically sampling said video envelope signal to provide a series of samples; means for calculating an absolute value of the difference of said series of video samples and a previous series of video samples; and means for comparing said calculated absolute values and a predetermined threshold value to indicate the stability condition wherein said calculated absolute values are less than said predetermined threshold value.
Claim 20
Dependent Claim
35 words
The system as recited in claim 18 further including means for increasing said predetermined threshold value wherein a predetermined time period elapses after the occurrence of said detected predetermined event without detecting a stability condition.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
No citation records indexed.
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