MEDIA IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM WITH FINGERPRINT DATABASE BALANCED ACCORDING TO SEARCH LOADS

• US 20140236952A1
• Filed: 04/24/2014
• Published: 08/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/11/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Seet, Nicholas, Johnson, Rob, Smallman, Joshua, Cahan, Adam
• Granted Patent: US 9,292,514 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/738
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/217 Database tuning G06F16/2282 takes precedence; database performance monitoring G06F11/3409
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/41 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures

Abstract

A media identification system generates reference fingerprints for known media samples and stores the reference fingerprints in a reference database. The media identification system uses the reference fingerprints to match a fingerprint generated from an unknown media sample to identify that unknown sample. When storing new reference fingerprints in the reference database, partitions of the database are selected to balance the search loads on the database when it is used by the media identification system. For example, the selected partitions may be determined based at least in part on the access rates of the partitions by the media identification system. New reference fingerprints will tend to be placed in partitions that have relatively lower access rates that the other partitions, which will tend to balance the search loads on the partitions by the media identification system.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for adding reference fingerprints to a database to balance the search loads on the database by a media identification system, the method comprising:

maintaining a reference database comprising a plurality of partitions, each partition storing a set of reference fingerprints generated from known media samples;

monitoring access rates of the partitions by a media identification system;

receiving a request to store one or more new reference fingerprints in the reference database;

selecting a partition of the reference database based at least in part on the access rates of the partitions; and

storing the new reference fingerprints in the selected partition of the reference database.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each partition is a logically defined data repository of the reference database.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein maintaining the reference database comprises:

indexing the reference fingerprints in the database by a characteristic of the reference fingerprints; and

grouping reference fingerprints having the same indexed characteristic in the same partition of the reference database.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the reference database further comprises metadata about the known media samples corresponding to the reference fingerprints in the reference database.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the access rate for a particular partition of the reference database comprises a number of requests to read reference fingerprints from the partition over a designated time period.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the reference fingerprints are generated from known audio samples.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the reference fingerprints are generated from known video samples.

8. A computer program product for adding reference fingerprints to a database to balance the search loads on the database by a media identification system, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium containing computer program code for performing the operations:

maintaining a reference database comprising a plurality of partitions, each partition storing a set of reference fingerprints generated from known media samples;

monitoring access rates of the partitions by a media identification system;

receiving a request to store one or more new reference fingerprints in the reference database;

selecting a partition of the reference database based at least in part on the access rates of the partitions; and

storing the new reference fingerprints in the selected partition of the reference database.

9. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein each partition is a logically defined data repository of the reference database.

10. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein maintaining the reference database comprises:

indexing the reference fingerprints in the database by a characteristic of the reference fingerprints; and

grouping reference fingerprints having the same indexed characteristic in the same partition of the reference database.

11. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the reference database further comprises metadata about the known media samples corresponding to the reference fingerprints in the reference database.

12. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the access rate for a particular partition of the reference database comprises a number of requests to read reference fingerprints from the partition over a designated time period.

13. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein one or more of the reference fingerprints are generated from known audio samples.

14. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein one or more of the reference fingerprints are generated from known video samples.

15. A media identification system comprising:

a reference database comprising a plurality of partitions, each partition storing a set of reference fingerprints generated from known media samples;

a fingerprint matching system configured to match an unknown media sample by comparing a test fingerprint generated from the unknown media sample with one or more reference fingerprints in the reference database

a fingerprint generation system configured to generate new reference fingerprints from known media samples, and further configured to store new reference fingerprints in partitions of the reference database selected at least in part on the access rates of the partitions by the fingerprint matching system.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein each partition is a logically defined data repository of the reference database.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein maintaining the reference database comprises an index that indexes the reference fingerprints by a characteristic of the reference fingerprints, wherein the reference fingerprints having the same indexed characteristic are grouped in the same partition of the reference database.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the reference database further comprises metadata about the known media samples corresponding to the reference fingerprints in the reference database.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the access rate for a particular partition of the reference database comprises a number of requests to read reference fingerprints from the partition over a designated time period.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein one or more of the reference fingerprints are generated from known audio samples.

21. The system of claim 15, wherein one or more of the reference fingerprints are generated from known video samples.