Video monitoring system
First Claim
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1. A method of monitoring broadcast television to detect specific program material comprising:
- (a) monitoring at least one television signal;
(b) extracting a plurality of characters present in the closed captioned portion of the signal;
(c) comparing the extracted plurality characters to a predetermined plurality of characters to determine if a match exists; and
(d) recording each occurrence of a match between the extracted plurality of characters and the predetermined plurality of characters.
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Abstract
A video monitoring system for identifying television broadcast program material such as commercials by extracting characters present in the closed captioned portion of the video signal at line 21, field 1 and comparing the extracted characters to stored characters and recording the occurrence of a match between the extracted characters and the stored characters indicating the presence of specific program material such as a commercial in the broadcast signal. In an alternative embodiment, comparison may be made between a compressed character string formed from extracted characters and a stored compressed character string.
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Citations
27 Claims
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1. A method of monitoring broadcast television to detect specific program material comprising:
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(a) monitoring at least one television signal; (b) extracting a plurality of characters present in the closed captioned portion of the signal; (c) comparing the extracted plurality characters to a predetermined plurality of characters to determine if a match exists; and (d) recording each occurrence of a match between the extracted plurality of characters and the predetermined plurality of characters. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method of capturing data from a closed captioned portion of a television signal comprising:
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(a) reading characters from a data window portion of line 21, field 1 of a broadcast television signal; (b) checking to see if a caption mode is active; (c) storing the characters if the caption mode is active; and (d) repeating steps (a)-(c) until a control code to clear memory is read in step (a). - View Dependent Claims (12, 13)
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14. A method of verifying the broadcast of television program material comprising:
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(a) forming a sensed paragraph of characters broadcast in successive data windows of the closed caption data portion of line 21, field 1 of a NTSC television signal; (b) comparing the sensed paragraph to a plurality of stored paragraphs of characters previously placed in a library of stored paragraphs; and (c) entering identifying information into a data log when a match is found between the sensed paragraph and one of the stored paragraphs where the identifying information entered is unique to the stored paragraph matching the sensed paragraph. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A method of verifying the broadcast of television program material comprising:
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(a) forming a sensed paragraph of characters broadcast in successive data windows of the closed caption data portion of line 21, field 1 of a NTSC television signal; (b) performing a character string compression transformation on the sensed paragraph to create a compressed string; (c) comparing the compressed string for the sensed paragraph to a plurality of stored compressed strings; (d) entering identifying information into a data log when a match is found between the compressed string for the sensed paragraph and one of the stored compressed strings where the identifying information entered is unique to the one stored compressed string matched. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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Specification