System and method of managing protected video content

• US 20080163288A1
• Filed: 01/03/2007
• Published: 07/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/03/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Regents of the University of California (University of California)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Li, Zhi, Ou, Canhui, Ghosal, Dipak
• Granted Patent: US 8,312,558 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/31
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/254 Management at additional data server, e.g. shopping server, rights management server arrangements for maintenance or administration in data networks H04L41/00; network services using third party service providers H04L67/53
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/434 Disassembling of a multiplex stream, e.g. demultiplexing audio and video streams, extraction of additional data from a video stream; Remultiplexing of multiplex streams; Extraction or processing of SI; Disassembling of packetised elementary stream demultiplexing of data packets for data networks, e.g. RTP/UDP H04L65/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44 Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing a video clip retrieved from local storage with an incoming video stream or rendering scenes according to encoded video stream scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8358 involving watermark protecting executable software by watermarking G06F21/16; image watermarking in general G06T1/0021; watermarks inserted in still images for transmission purposes H04N1/32144; inserting watermarks during video coding H04N19/467
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/1675 Providing digital key or authorisation information for generation or regeneration of the scrambling sequence pseudo-random number generators in general G06F7/58

Abstract

A method of managing protected video content is presented that includes inspecting a packet stream received from a subscriber broadband interface, where the packet stream includes video content. The method also includes generating a signature based on the video content and comparing the generated signature with a stored signature corresponding to protected video content. In a particular embodiment, the method can include storing data indicating that the protected video content has been re-distributed from the subscriber broadband interface when the generated signature matches the stored signature.

Claims

1. A method of managing protected video content, the method comprising:

inspecting a packet stream sent by a subscriber broadband interface, wherein the packet stream includes video content;

generating a signature based on the video content; and

comparing the generated signature with a stored signature corresponding to protected video content.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing data indicating that the protected video content has been re-distributed from the subscriber broadband interface when the generated signature matches the stored signature.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the generated signature includes a first sequence of coefficients and the stored signature includes a second sequence of coefficients.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the generated signature matches the stored signature when a first histogram corresponding to the generated signature matches a second histogram corresponding to the stored signature.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein a match between the generated signature and the stored signature is determined by a cross-correlation vector corresponding to the generated signature and the stored signature.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the match is indicated by a peak in the cross-correlation vector.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the stored signature is selected from a plurality of stored signatures based at least partially on data indicating that the video content has been sent to the subscriber broadband interface.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the generated signature is generated by applying a wavelet transform to each of a plurality of subsections of the video content.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the video stream includes Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) video content and wherein the plurality of subsections are identified by a sequence of Intra-coded frames (I-frames), Predictive-coded frames (P-frames), or any combination thereof, within the MPEG video content.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the wavelet transform is a Haar wavelet transform.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising generating a plurality of signatures for the video content, wherein the plurality of generated signatures range from a first generated signature corresponding to a lowest degree of resolution to a last generated signature corresponding to a highest degree of resolution.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising comparing at least one of the plurality of generated signatures to at least one of a plurality of stored signatures corresponding to the protected video content, wherein the plurality of stored signatures range from a first stored signature corresponding to the lowest degree of resolution to a last stored signature corresponding to the highest degree of resolution.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

comparing the first generated signature to the first stored signature; and

comparing at least one next generated signature to at least one next stored signature, until a desired degree of resolution has been reached.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising storing data indicating that the protected video content has been re-distributed from the subscriber broadband interface when the first generated signature and the at least one next generated signature match the first stored signature and the at least one next stored signature.

15. A method of managing protected video content, the method comprising:

reading a first packet stream sent by a video server to a set-top box coupled to a subscriber broadband interface, wherein the packet stream is related to protected video content;

generating a signature corresponding to the protected video content;

storing the signature at a signature store; and

providing the stored signature to a video content management system for comparison with a generated signature corresponding to a second packet stream sent from the subscriber broadband interface.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the first packet stream is read from the video server by a video signature generator at a video head-end of an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) system.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising generating a plurality of signatures corresponding to the protected video content, wherein each of the plurality of signatures corresponds to a different degree of resolution and includes a sequence of coefficients.

18. A system to manage protected video content, the system comprising:

a processor and a memory device accessible to the processor, wherein the memory device includes instructions executable by the processor to;

inspect a packet stream received from a subscriber broadband interface, wherein the packet stream includes video content;

generate a signature based on the video content; and

compare the generated signature with a stored signature corresponding to protected video content.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the memory device stores data indicating that the protected video content has been re-distributed from the subscriber broadband interface when the generated signature matches the stored signature.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the memory device includes instructions executable by the processor to generate a plurality of signatures based on the video content and to compare at least one of the plurality of generated signatures with at least one of a plurality of stored signatures corresponding to the protected video content.

21. The system of claim 18, wherein the memory device includes instructions executable by the processor to determine whether the packet stream includes video data packets.

22. The system of claim 21, further comprising a de-multiplexer to separate the packet stream into the video data packets and non-video data packets.

23. The system of claim 18, wherein the memory device includes instructions executable by the processor to select the subscriber broadband interface for content-level packet inspection based on volume-level analysis data corresponding to a broadband network coupled to the subscriber broadband interface.

24. The system of claim 18, further comprising a noise filter to remove high-frequency coefficients from the video content.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the noise filter includes a Gaussian noise filter.

26. The system of claim 18, further comprising a deep-packet inspection tool to inspect the packet stream.

27. A computer-readable medium tangibly embodying a set of instructions that are executable by a processor to:

inspect a packet stream received from a subscriber broadband interface, wherein the packet stream includes video content;

generate a signature based on the video content;

compare the generated signature with a stored signature corresponding to protected video content; and

store data indicating that the protected video content has been re-distributed from the subscriber broadband interface when the generated signature matches the stored signature.

28. The computer-readable medium of claim 27, further comprising instructions executable by the processor to determine a peak in a cross-correlation vector resulting from a comparison between a first sequence of coefficients and a stored sequence of coefficients, the peak indicating that the video content matches the protected video content, wherein the generated signature includes the first sequence of coefficients and the stored signature includes the second sequence of coefficients.

29. The computer-readable medium of claim 28, further comprising instructions executable by the processor to access the stored signature at a signature store of a video head-end associated with a private video distribution system.

30. The computer-readable medium of claim 27, further comprising instructions executable by the processor to:

generate a plurality of signatures based on the video content, wherein each of the plurality of generated signatures corresponds to a different degree of resolution; and

compare at least one of the plurality of generated signatures with at least one of a plurality of stored signatures corresponding to the protected video content.