Recognizer of audio-content in digital signals

• US 6,973,574 B2
• Filed: 04/24/2001
• Issued: 12/06/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/24/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Venkatesan, Ramarathnam, Mihcak, M. Kivanc
• Primary Examiner(s): Barron, Gilberto
• Assistant Examiner(s): Dinh, Minh
• Application Number:
  US09/843,254
• Publication Number:
  US 20020184505A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,687 Days
• Field of Search: 713/176, 713180-181, 704/203, 704/230, 704269-270, 382/100, 382/232, 382/234, 382/248, 382/251
• US Class Current: 713/180
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/433 using audio data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/634 Query by example, e.g. query by humming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/683 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/0058 Transmission between separate instruments or between individual components of a musical system G10H1/0083 takes precedence

Abstract

An implementation of a technology is described herein for recognizing the audio content of digital signals. The technology determines one or more hash values for the original audio content of a digital signal. In one implementation described herein, audio content recognition facilitates identification of the original audio content and other audio content that is substantially perceptually same to the original audio content. In another implementation described herein, audio content recognition facilitates semantic categorization of such original content so that it may be grouped with other audio works in the same semantic category. This abstract itself is not intended to limit the scope of this patent. The scope of the present invention is pointed out in the appending claims.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for hashing a digital signal, comprising:

transforming the digital signal into a digital signal transform;

randomly dividing the digital signal transform into multiple chunks, each chunk containing signal data, wherein the dividing is carried out recursively to form hierarchical levels of overlapping chunks;

averaging, for each of the chunks, the signal data to produce corresponding chunk averages;

generating, based in part on the chunk averages, an exponential distribution having multiple distinct quantization levels;

randomly rounding each of the chunk averages to one of the quantization levels to produce rounded values; and

hashing a composite of the rounded values.

2. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the digital signals are digital audio signals.

3. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the tranforming is performed according to a MCLT technique.

4. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the averaging comprises computing a variance of the signal data in cases where the chunk average is approximately zero.

5. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the hashing comprises processing the rounded values to produce an intermediate hash value such that for perceptually distinct digital signals, the intermediate hash values differ approximately 60% of the time and for perceptually same digital signals, the intermediate hash values agree in all but approximately 20% of the time.

6. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the hashing comprises rocessing the rounded values using a Reed-Mü

ller error correction code decoder.

7. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the hashing comprises processing the rounded the values using a Reed-Mü

ller error correction code decoder with an exponential pseudo-random norm.

8. A computer-implemented methods as recited in claim 1, wherein the hashing produces an intermediate hash value, further comprising reducing a size of the intermediate hash value via error correction process.

9. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the digital signals are selected from a group consisting of digital audio signals, digital video signals, digital music signals, digital image signals, and digital multimedia signals.