FRAME IDENTIFICATION

• US 20130003869A1
• Filed: 06/30/2011
• Published: 01/03/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cable Television Laboratories Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Cable Television Laboratories Incorporated
• Inventors: Burt, Donald V.
• Granted Patent: US 8,989,280 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/240.26
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4344 Remultiplexing of multiplex streams, e.g. by modifying time stamps or remapping the packet identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/643 Communication protocols network streaming protocols, e.g. real-time transport protocol [RTP] or real-time control protocol [RTCP], H04L65/65
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8455 involving pointers to the content, e.g. pointers to the I-frames of the video stream

Abstract

An unbound, out-of-band identification concept for identifying video frames and/or other data sets within a transport stream. The identification may include the use of reference markers to identify the video frames independently of a transmission protocol used to facilitate the transport stream. This type of ubiquitous generation of reference markings may allow the reference markers to be easily propagated and used with disparate transmission protocols and transport streams.

Claims

1. A method of identifying video frames carried within transport packets of a Moving Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) transport stream, the transport packets including a random access indicator (RAI) bit value of one of 0 and 1, the method comprising:

associating video frames with a reference marker, each reference marker including a corresponding signature and count value, the signature identifying a preceding transport packet having a RAI bit value of 1, the count value identifying video frame positioning relative to the signature of the preceding transport packet.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising generating the signatures uniquely from data included in a header of the corresponding transport packet.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising representing the count value as a numerical value indicative of a number of video frames from which the corresponding video frame is spaced from the preceding transport packet.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining an advertisement avail schedule, the advertisement avail schedule specifying advertisement avails within the MPEG transport stream relative to the signatures.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising determining the advertisement avails to include an offset value, the offset value specifying a number of video frames from the signature at which the corresponding advertisement avail begins.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising determining the advertisement avails to further include a duration value, the duration value specifying a number of video frames comprising the advertisement avail.

7. The method of claim 4 further comprising facilitating use of the advertisement avail schedule with a dynamic ad insertion application operating a device used to decode the MPEG transport stream for playback, the dynamic advertisement insertion application relying on the advertisement avails specified in the advertisement avail schedule to schedule advertisement insertion during playback of the MPEG transport stream.

8. A method of defining a video frame location for video frames carried within transport packets of a Moving Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) transport stream, the method comprising:

processing the transport packets to identify the video frames included therein;

identifying a plurality of the transport packets to be signature packets;

generating a first signature for each of the signature packets; and

defining a video frame location for each identified video frames relative to the signatures.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising identifying the signature packets as the transport packets having a random access indicator (RAI) bit value of 1, and not the transport packets having an RAI bit value of 0.

10. The method of claim 8 further comprising defining the video frame location by relating each video frame identified between two successive signature packets to the first signature of a first one of the two successive signature packets.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising defining the video frame location to include an offset value, the offset value specifying a number of video frames separating the corresponding video frame from the corresponding first one of the two successive signature packets.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising relating advertisement avails to a plurality of the identified video frames by identifying a beginning video frame location for each advertisement avail according to the related first signature and the offset value of the corresponding one of the video frames.

13. The method of claim 11 further comprising relating application trigger events to a plurality of the identified video frames by identifying a trigger event video frame location for each triggering event according to the related first signature and the offset value of the corresponding one of the video frames.

14. The method of claim 8 further comprising instructing a device configured to process the MPEG transport stream for output to time execution of a plurality of operations relative to selected ones of the video frame locations, the device separately and independently generating a second signature for the signature packets and determining the selected ones of the video frame locations to correspond with those where the first and second signatures match.

15. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of instructions including instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

synchronize operations specified in an operation schedule relative to a triggering video frame associated with a corresponding one of a plurality of video frames transported in one or more of a plurality of transport packets;

determine signatures for one or more of the transport packets; and

detect the triggering video frames as a function of the signatures.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 having instructions which cause the processor to determine the signatures as a function of a header associated with each transport packet.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16 having instruction which cause the processor to determine the signatures as function of a random access indicator (RAI) bit value included in the header of each transport stream.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17 having instructions which cause the processor to determine the signatures for the transport packets having an RAI bit value of 1 and not for the transport packets having an RAI bit value of 0.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 having instructions which cause the processor to determine the signatures as function of data included in an adaptation field of each header.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 having instructions which cause the processor to:

match the signatures to signatures previously associated in a signature table with operations to be executed relative to detection of certain signatures; and

execute the operations associated with matching signatures.