System for verifying broadcast of a commercial message

• US 6,388,712 B1
• Filed: 03/19/1998
• Issued: 05/14/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 10/09/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation), Video Research Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation), Video Research Ltd.
• Inventors: Inokuma, Haruhiko, Wada, Masuo, Shinohara, Nobutaka
• Primary Examiner(s): Kostak, Victor R.
• Application Number:
  US09/044,229
• Time in Patent Office: 1,517 Days
• Field of Search: 348/473, 348/465, 348/476, 348/1, 348/2, 348/4, 455/1, 725/22
• US Class Current: 348/473
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/14 for monitoring programmes
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/31 using in-band signals, e.g. subsonic or cue signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/06 Arrangements for scheduling broadcast services or broadcast-related services
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/37 for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID
• 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 60/59 of video recognising characters or patterns in general G06F18/00, G06V20/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/08 Systems for the simultaneous or sequential transmission of more than one television signal, e.g. additional information signals, the signals occupying wholly or partially the same frequency band , e.g. by time division H04N7/007 takes precedence

Abstract

A broadcast verification system includes a CM creation device for creating a CM signal to be included in a television signal and a verification device for receiving the television broadcast signal transmitted from a broadcast station and checking the CM signal. The CM creation device includes an encoder for superimposing unique ID information identifying the CM signal to the CM signal at a predetermined position. The verification device includes a decoder for extracting the ID information from the television broadcast signal, a verification section for verifying, on the basis of the extracted ID information and a CM schedule supplied from the broadcast station through a path different from that for the television broadcast signal, whether the CM has been broadcast according to the schedule, and a verification information storage means for storing verification information containing at least the verification result, the broadcasting time of the CM, and the broadcast channel.

Claims

1. A broadcast verification system comprising:

an audio signal creation device for creating an audio signal to be broadcast from a broadcast station; and

a verification device for receiving the broadcast signal broadcast from the broadcast station, and verifying whether the audio signal is contained in the broadcast signal,

wherein said audio signal creation device comprises ID information adding means for adding ID information indicating contents of the audio signal to the audio signal by selectively ejecting/not ejecting a plurality of predetermined frequency components of the audio signal, and

said verification device comprises;

ID information extracting means for extracting the ID information from the broadcast signal depending on whether the plurality of predetermined frequency components are ejected/not ejected from the broadcast signal; and

determination means for checking on the basis of the ID information extracted by said ID information extracting means whether the audio signal is broadcast according to a predetermined schedule.

2. A system according to claim 1, wherein said ID information adding means adds a plurality of pieces of ID information to the audio signal by selectively ejecting/not ejecting a plurality of predetermined frequency components at a plurality of timings.

3. An audio signal creation device for a broadcast verification system, the audio signal creation device comprising:

means for creating an audio signal to be broadcast from a broadcast station; and

ID information adding means for adding ID information indicating contents of the audio signal to the audio signal by selectively ejecting/not ejecting a plurality of predetermined frequency components of the audio signal.

4. A device according to claim 3, wherein said ID information adding means adds a plurality of pieces of ID information to the audio signal by selectively ejecting/not ejecting a plurality of predetermined frequency components at a plurality of timings.

5. A broadcast verification device comprising:

means for receiving an audio signal broadcast from the broadcast station, the audio signal including an ID information indicating contents of the audio signal by selectively ejecting/not ejecting a plurality of predetermined frequency components of the audio signal;

ID information extracting means for extracting the ID information from the broadcast signal depending on whether the plurality of predetermined frequency components are ejected/not ejected from the broadcast signal; and

determination means for checking on the basis of the ID information extracted by said ID information extracting means whether the audio signal is broadcast according to a predetermined schedule.