Method and System for Identification of Distributed Broadcast Content

• US 20110099197A1
• Filed: 12/22/2010
• Published: 04/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Shazam Entertainment Limited (Apple Inc.)
• Inventors: Wang, Avery Li Chun, Symons, Jonathan, Wong, Chee
• Granted Patent: US 8,086,171 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/683 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 2201/30 characterised by the use of a return channel, e.g. for collecting users' opinions, for returning broadcast space/time information or for requesting data
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/37 for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/40 for identifying broadcast time
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/42 for identifying broadcast areas
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/58 of audio determination or detection of speech characteristics in general G10L25/00; speech recognition in general G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/74 using programme related information, e.g. title, composer or interpreter
• 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

Abstract

A method and system of performing high-throughput identifications of broadcast content is provided. A device can send a content identification query, which includes a sample of content being broadcast, to a server to request an identity of the content. The server will perform a computational identification of the content, return the result to the device, and store the result. For all subsequently received content identification queries requesting an identity of content being broadcast from the same source and in a time during which the content is still being broadcast from the source, the server will send the stored content identification in response to the subsequent queries. If a subsequent content identification query does not request the identity of content being broadcast from the same source or is not received during the time that the content is still being broadcast, the server will perform a computational identification of a content sample.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored therein instructions executable by a computing device to cause the computing device to perform functions of:

receiving a content identification query from a client device, the content identification query requesting an identity of content that was broadcast from a broadcast source;

if content from the broadcast source has previously been identified and if the content identification query has been received at a time during which the content is still being broadcast from the broadcast source, sending the previous identification of the content to the client device; and

if not, (i) performing a content identification using a sample of the content broadcast from the broadcast source, and (ii) storing the content identification.

2. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions are executable to perform the functions of:

determining if content from the broadcast source has previously been identified by;

accessing a cache including a listing of content identifications, each of which is associated with a given broadcast source; and

matching the broadcast source of the content to one of the given broadcast sources in the listing.

3. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the instructions are executable to perform the functions of:

determining if the content identification query has been received at a time during which the content is still being broadcast from the source by;

determining a length of the content;

determining a relative time offset (RTO) of the content from a beginning of the content;

calculating a time at which the content will not be broadcast from the source using the length of the content and the RTO of the content; and

comparing a receipt time of the content identification query with the time at which the content will not be broadcast from the source.

4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions are executable to perform the functions of determining an identity of the broadcast source by receiving an indication selected from the group consisting of a broadcast frequency, a satellite radio channel, a television channel, a uniform resource locator (URL), and an internet address.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 4, wherein the instructions are executable to perform the functions of:

receiving information pertaining to a location of the client device; and

identifying a broadcast station having the broadcast frequency and that broadcasts within a coverage area including the location of the client device.

6. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the content identification query includes information pertaining to the broadcast source, and wherein the instructions are executable to perform the functions of determining an identity of the broadcast source.

7. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 6, wherein the instructions are executable to perform the functions of determining coverage areas of broadcast stations by:

receiving content identification queries from client devices requesting an identity of content that was broadcast from a broadcast source, each content identification query including a sample of the content, a broadcast frequency of the broadcast source, and information pertaining to a location of the client devices;

making an identification of the samples of the content;

determining a time interval of validity of the identification of the samples of the content, wherein the time interval of validity indicates a time during which the identification of the sample will be valid as being broadcast from the broadcast source; and

for content identification queries received (i) including the same broadcast frequency, (ii) having a temporal overlapping time interval of validity, and (iii) for which the identification of the sample of the content matches, associating locations of the client devices within the content identification queries to be within a coverage area of a broadcast source that broadcasts using the broadcast frequency.

8. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the instructions are further executable to perform the functions of estimating a coverage area for the broadcast source using the associated locations.

9. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions are executable to perform the functions of:

determining when the content will stop being broadcast from the broadcast source; and

sending information indicating when the content will stop being broadcast from the broadcast source to the client device.

10. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions are executable to perform the functions of after the content has stopped being broadcast from the source, sending information pertaining to content subsequently broadcast from the source to the client device without receiving the content identification query.

11. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions are executable to perform the functions of:

determining a time interval of validity of the content identification, wherein the time interval of validity indicates a time during which the content identification is valid;

for content identification queries received (i) including the same given broadcast source, (ii) having a temporal overlapping time interval of validity, and (iii) for which the content identifications match, associating locations of client devices for the content identification queries to be within a coverage area of the given broadcast source; and

estimating a coverage area for the given broadcast source using the associated locations.

12. A method for identifying content within a data stream, comprising:

receiving a content identification query, the content identification query requesting an identity of content that was broadcast from a broadcast source;

determining whether content from the broadcast source has previously been identified;

determining whether the content identification query has been received at a time during which the previous identification is valid; and

retrieving the previous identification of the content from memory if the previous identification is valid.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising sending the previous identification of the content to a client device if the previous identification is valid.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising if the previous identification is not valid, performing a content identification using a sample of the content broadcast from the broadcast source.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising storing the content identification.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein determining whether content from the broadcast source has previously been identified comprises:

accessing a cache including a listing of content identifications, each of which is associated with a given broadcast source; and

matching the broadcast source of the content to one of the given broadcast sources in the listing.

17. A system for identifying content within a data stream, comprising:

a request server configured to receive a content identification query from a client device, the content identification query requesting an identity of content that was broadcast from a broadcast source, wherein if content from the broadcast source has previously been identified and if the content identification query has been received at a time during which the content is still being broadcast from the broadcast source the request server is configured to send the previous identification of the content to the client device; and

a recognition server coupled to the request server and configured to perform an identification of the content based on a sample of the content received from the client device if the content identification query has not been received at the time during which the content is still being broadcast from the broadcast source.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the request server is configured to receive location information from the client device that indicates a geographic location of the client device, and the request server is configured to determine an identity of the broadcast source based on the location information.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the request server is configured to request the client device to send the sample to the request server.

20. The system of claim 17, further comprising a cache, wherein the request server stores the identification of the content and a length of time during which the identification is valid in the cache.