DEVICE FOR MONITORING MULTIPLE BROADCAST SIGNALS

• US 20080290970A1
• Filed: 05/23/2007
• Published: 11/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/23/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Landmark Digital Services LLC, Vinci Brands LLC
• Original Assignee: Griffin Technology, Landmark Digital Services LLC
• Inventors: Gilbert, David A., Graham, Fredric I., Briggs, Darren P., Jenkins, Jack E., Withers, Dustin, Wardwell, Richard, DeBusk, David L., Griffin, Paul P. JR., Cook, George A.
• Granted Patent: US 7,840,177 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 334/1
• CPC Class Codes: H03J 1/0008 using a central processing unit, e.g. a microprocessor digital tuning in general H03J5/0245
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/1646 adapted for the reception of stereophonic signals

Abstract

A media content monitoring system uses a rack adapted to receive multiple carrier boards to improve the system'"'"'s ability to be configured to specific applications. Each carrier board contains tuner modules for receiving AM/FM broadcasts, satellite radio broadcasts, TV audio broadcasts, HD, IBOC, DAB and DRM digital radio broadcasts, etc. The tuner modules produce a USB output that is combined by a USB hub on the carrier boards into a single USB output. The carrier board outputs are in turn combined by a rack based USB hub into single USB output that is provided to a host computer. The host computer includes content identification software that automatically identifies selected media content received by the tuner modules and stores the selected content in a database. The host computer can send control codes to the tuner modules to alter their reception parameters.

Claims

1. A broadcast monitoring system for monitoring at least two broadcast signals, the monitoring system comprising:

at least two tuner modules wherein each tuner module is adapted to receive a broadcast signal and produce an output corresponding to the broadcast signal;

a hub for receiving the outputs and aggregating and interfacing the outputs to a processing device, wherein each of the at least two tuner modules is detachable from the hub so that each of the at least two tuner modules can be replaced with a different tuner module adapted to receive a different broadcast in order to reconfigure the broadcast monitoring system.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the output of each tuner module is a USB output and the hub is a USB hub.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the hub is removably mounted on the broadcast monitoring system so that the hub can be removed and replaced with another hub by a user.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the processing device further comprises content identification software for deriving characteristics of broadcasts received by the tuners.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the processing device can send control codes to the tuners to configure the tuners.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the modular tuners are each chosen from a group of modular tuners comprising over-the-air (OTA) radio tuners, OTA television tuners, cable radio tuners, cable television tuners, satellite radio tuners, satellite television tuners, or network interface cards for connecting to the Internet and receiving streaming audio or video.

8. A media monitoring system comprising:

at least two tuner modules for receiving broadcast signals and producing an output based upon the broadcast signals;

at least one carrier board adapted to removably couple to the at least two tuner modules and produce a combined output based upon outputs of the at least two tuner modules; and

a rack adapted to removably couple to the at least two carrier boards and combine outputs from the at least two carrier boards into a single output and provide the single output to a host computer.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein one of the at least two tuner modules is adapted to receive an AM/FM broadcast signal.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein one of the at least two tuner modules is adapted to receive a satellite radio broadcast signal.

11. The system of claim 8 wherein one of the at least two tuner modules is adapted to receive a digital radio broadcast signal.

13. The system of claim 8 wherein the host computer includes content identification software that identifies selected broadcasts received from the tuner modules and a database for storing the selected broadcasts.

14. The system of claim 8 further comprising a removable hub for combining the outputs of the carrier boards.

12. The system of 8 wherein the host computer can transfer control codes that alter an operating parameter of the tuner modules through the rack and the carrier boards to the tuner modules.

15. A method for monitoring multiple broadcast signals comprising:

sending configuration information to a processing device attached to a plurality of modular tuners;

configuring one or more of the plurality of modular tuners, the configuration including setting the tuner to receive a specified broadcast;

receiving multiple broadcasts with the plurality of modular tuners; and

sending the broadcast signals to the processing device for processing.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the processing device is further operable to derive characteristics from the broadcast signals, the characteristics useful in identifying the content of the broadcast signals.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the processing device is further operable to send the characteristics to a central core for identification.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein the processing system is operable to compare the characteristics against an index of known content to determine the content of at least a portion of the broadcast signals.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the processing device is further operable to send information concerning the identified content and the characteristics of any unidentified content to a central core.

20. The system of claim 15 wherein the tuners are connected to the processing system over a USB bus and using USB hubs, the USB hubs aggregating the broadcast signals from a cluster of modular tuners from the plurality of modular tuners wherein the USB hubs are removably mounted in sockets.