System for Extracting a Fingerprint Data From Video/Audio Signals

• US 20100066759A1
• Filed: 05/21/2008
• Published: 03/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ZTE Corporation
• Original Assignee: Yuvad Technologies Co. Ltd
• Inventors: Zhang, Ji
• Granted Patent: US 8,488,835 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/620
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/46 Extracting features or characteristics from the video content, e.g. video fingerprints, representative shots or key frames
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/48 Matching video sequences
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/28 by using information signals recorded by the same method as the main recording G11B27/22 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32144 embedded in the image data, i.e. enclosed or integrated in the image, e.g. watermark, super-imposed logo or stamp
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59

Abstract

A system for extracting a fingerprint data from video/audio signals, comprising a frame buffer for storing the video frame images, which accepts a new video frame image and discards the oldest video frame image in a first in first out (FIFO) fashion; a sub-sampler for sampling the video images, which operates on one video frame image at a time, so that the output of the sub-sampler contains data samples obtained from multiple video frame images while the video image content itself is discarded, and after each video frame image is sampled at the head of the frame buffer, it is discarded after the sampling; a divider through which the data samples go, in order to divide the data samples into groups of video frames so as to be organized as one fingerprint segment after another one; a formatter which incorporates optional information to the fingerprint segment so as to form the fingerprint data, and at the output of the formatter, the video image content is discarded, only the fingerprint data and the associated optional information remain; and a transfer buffer which transfers the fingerprint data and the associated optional information by to the fingerprint database. According to the present invention, the system for extracting a fingerprint data from video/audio signals facilitates the automatic identification, archiving and search of video content without the need for human visual inspections.

Claims

1. A system for extracting a fingerprint data from video/audio signals, comprising

a frame buffer for storing the video frame images, which accepts a new video frame image and discards the oldest video frame image in a first in first out (FIFO) fashion;

a sub-sampler for sampling the video images, which operates on one video frame image at a time, so that the output of the sub-sampler contains data samples obtained from multiple video frame images while the video image content itself is discarded, and after each video frame image is sampled at the head of the frame buffer, it is discarded after the sampling;

a divider through which the data samples go, in order to divide the data samples into groups of video frames so as to be organized as one fingerprint segment after another one;

a formatter which incorporates optional information to the fingerprint segment so as to form the fingerprint data, and at the output of the formatter, the video image content is discarded, only the fingerprint data and the associated optional information remain; and

a transfer buffer which transfers the fingerprint data by to the fingerprint database.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said frame sampler obtains luminance or brightness samples on a sequence of digitized video frame images.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein same number of video samples is made in each frame, and their sample locations within each frame are fixed from frame to frame.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the sample locations within the image are spaced at an integer fraction positions of the video image resolution at both the horizontal and vertical directions.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein 5 samples are made per video image, in which the sample 1 is in a middle position of the image;

the sample 2 is in a middle in horizontal direction, and at top quarter of vertical image size;

the sample 3 is in a middle in horizontal direction, and at bottom quarter of vertical image size;

the sample 4 is in a middle in vertical direction and at left quarter of horizontal image size; and

the ample 5 is in a middle in vertical direction and at right quarter of horizontal image size.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the fingerprint data is ordered so that the fingerprints obtained from the same video frame can be uniquely identified, and the fingerprints obtained from different video frames can also be uniquely identified.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the fingerprint data is organized as a two-dimensional array, in which one dimension holds the ordered samples from within a single video frame, and the other dimension holds the ordered samples from different video frames.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the formatter obtains the optional information which includes a brief description of what is the content, where the content was obtained, when the content was obtained, and/or what any information may be useful in describing the content itself.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the sub-sampler does sampling for once every other frame, for the first N frames, for N frames periodically, for one frame every other N frames periodically, or all of the frames continuously.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein a converter is adapted to make the video frames first go through it so as to form time-consecutive digitized video images if they are originally in analog format, and/or decompress the same if they are stored in a compressed data format.