METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING PLAY OF AN AUDIO SIGNAL

• US 20160029084A1
• Filed: 06/12/2015
• Published: 01/28/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/26/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Clearplay Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Clearplay Incorporated
• Inventors: Jarman, Matthew T., Meisel, William S.
• Granted Patent: US 9,762,963 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/13 Arrangements for device control affected by the broadcast information
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/48 for recognising items expressed in broadcast information
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4394 involving operations for analysing the audio stream, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in audio streams arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4396 by muting the audio signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/440236 by media transcoding, e.g. video is transformed into a slideshow of still pictures, audio is converted into text
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4542 Blocking scenes or portions of the received content, e.g. censoring scenes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4545 Input to filtering algorithms, e.g. filtering a region of the image
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4884 for displaying subtitles

Abstract

Apparatus and methods conforming to the present invention comprise a method of controlling playback of an audio signal through analysis of a corresponding close caption signal in conjunction with analysis of the corresponding audio signal. Objection text or other specified text in the close caption signal is identified through comparison with user identified objectionable text. Upon identification of the objectionable text, the audio signal is analyzed to identify the audio portion corresponding to the objectionable text. Upon identification of the audio portion, the audio signal may be controlled to mute the audible objectionable text.

Claims

1. A method of controlling audio playback, the method comprising:

converting a specified portion of a close caption text signal to an audio equivalent based on a phonetic representation of the specified portion;

comparing the audio equivalent of the specified portion of the close caption text signal to a comparative form of an audio signal;

identifying a portion of the audio signal corresponding with the specified portion of the close caption text signal based on the comparison of the audio equivalent to the comparative form of the audio signal; and

controlling playback of the portion of the audio signal corresponding with the specified portion of the close caption text signal.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the audio equivalent is based on at least one energy value for the phonetic representation of the specified portion.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the comparison of the audio equivalent to the comparative form of the audio signal includes comparing the at least one energy value of the phonetic representation to at least one energy representation of the audio signal.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein controlling the playback includes at least one of:

attenuating the portion of the audio signal corresponding with the specified portion of the close caption text signal;

substantially deleting the portion of the audio signal corresponding with the specified portion of the close caption text signal;

issuing at least one command adapted to attenuate the portion of the audio signal corresponding with the specified portion of the close caption text signal;

or inserting at least one control code in the audio signal, the control code adapted to cause attenuation of the portion of the audio signal corresponding with the specified portion of the close caption text signal.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the specified portion of the close caption text signal includes objectionable text.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the specified portion of the close caption text signal further includes text preceding the objectionable text.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the phonetic representation is generated by assigning an identifier for each phonetic category in the specified portion of the close caption text signal.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the phonetic category is one of:

a space category;

a vowel, diphthongs, and semi-vowels category;

a stop category;

a nasals category;

or a fricatives, whispers, and affricatives category.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the phonetic representation is generated on a letter-by-letter basis.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the comparison of the audio equivalent to the comparative form of the audio signal includes a time alignment between the audio equivalent and the comparative form.

11. A method of controlling an audio presentation, the method comprising:

receiving an audio signal;

storing the audio signal in memory;

receiving a filter list including at least one word;

identifying a portion of the audio signal corresponding to the at least one word based on a match between a comparative form of the audio signal and an audio representation of the at least one word; and

manipulating the portion of the audio signal in the memory to filter the at least one word during the audio presentation.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the comparative form of the audio signal is generated based on at least one energy representation of the audio signal.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the at least one energy representation includes a series of vectors of energy involving a total energy of a speech slice and an energy of one or more frequency bands of the speech slice.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the audio representation of the at least one word is generated based on at least one energy value for a phonetic representation of the at least one word.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the portion of the audio signal is manipulated in the memory by embedding a control code in the audio signal stored in the memory.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the control code is adapted to attenuate the portion of the audio signal or mute the portion of the audio signal.

17. A system for filtering objectionable words, the system comprising:

a closed caption analyzer executable by at least one processor and configured to identify a specified text in a closed caption text stream based on a comparison of each word in the closed caption text stream to at least one filter list;

a closed caption audiotizer executable by the at least one processor and configured to generate an audio equivalent of the specified text; and

an audio stream analyzer executable by the at least one processor and configured to match a portion of an audio signal with the specified text by comparing the audio equivalent with a comparative form of the audio signal, the audio stream analyzer further configured to filter the portion of the audio signal.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the at least one filter list includes at least one of:

a user identified objectionable text list;

a root word list;

or an exclude word list.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein identifying the specified text in the closed caption text stream includes determining whether the specified text is objectionable based on a context of use.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the portion of an audio signal is matched with the specified text based on a time alignment between the audio equivalent and the comparative form of the audio signal.