Method and apparatus for creating a unique audio signature

• US 7,562,012 B1
• Filed: 11/03/2000
• Issued: 07/14/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Audible Magic Corporation
• Original Assignee: Audible Magic Corporation
• Inventors: Keislar, Douglas F., Wheaton, James A., Blum, Thomas L., Wold, Erling H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Opsasnick; Michael N
• Application Number:
  US09/706,227
• Time in Patent Office: 3,175 Days
• Field of Search: 704/210.1, 704/270, 704500-504, 704/200, 704/200.1
• US Class Current: 704/200
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/0041 in coded form
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/135 Library retrieval index, i.e. using an indexing scheme to efficiently retrieve a music piece
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2250/221 Cosine transform; DCT [discrete cosine transform], e.g. for use in lossy audio compression such as MP3 MP3 format G10H2240/061
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2250/261 Window, i.e. apodization function or tapering function amounting to the selection and appropriate weighting of a group of samples in a digital signal within some chosen time interval, outside of which it is zero valued

Abstract

A method and apparatus for creating a signature of a sampled work in real-time is disclosed herein. Unique signatures of an unknown audio work are created by segmenting a file into segments having predetermined segment and hop sizes. The signature then may be compared against reference signatures. One aspect may be characterized in that the hop size of the sampled work signature is less than the hop size of reference signatures. A method for identifying an unknown audio work is also disclosed.

Claims

1. An apparatus that determines an identity of an unknown sampled work, said apparatus comprising:

a database to store a plurality of reference signatures of each of a plurality of reference works wherein said plurality of reference signatures of each of said plurality of reference works are created from a plurality of segments of said each of said plurality of reference works having a known segment size and a known hop size, wherein said predetermined hop size of each of said plurality of segments of said unknown sampled work is less than said known hop size; and

a processor coupled to the database to receive data of said unknown sampled work, to segment said data of said unknown sampled work into a plurality of segments wherein each of said segments has a predetermined segment size and a predetermined hop size, to create a plurality of signatures of said unknown sampled work based upon said plurality of segments of said unknown sampled work, wherein each of said plurality of signatures is of said predetermined segment size and said predetermined hop size, to compare said plurality of signatures of said unknown sampled work to a plurality of reference signatures of each of a plurality of reference works created from a plurality of sample segments of each of said plurality of reference works, each of said plurality of reference signatures of each of said plurality of reference works having a known segment size and a known hop size wherein said predetermined hop size of said each of said plurality of segments of said unknown sampled work is less than said known hop size, and to identify said unknown sampled work is one of said reference works based upon said comparison.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said processor to create a plurality of signatures of said unknown sampled work is further to calculate segment feature vectors for each of said plurality of segments of said unknown sampled work.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said processor to create a plurality of signatures of said unknown sampled work is further to calculate a plurality of MFCCs for each said segment.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said processor to create a plurality of signatures of said unknown sampled work is further to calculate one of plurality of acoustical features selected from a group consisting of loudness, pitch, brightness, bandwidth, spectrum and MFCC coefficients for each of said plurality of segments of said unknown sampled work.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said unknown sampled work signature comprises a plurality of segments and an identification portion.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said plurality of segments of said unknown sampled work comprise said predetermined segment size of approximately 0.5 to 3 seconds.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein said predetermined hop size of said plurality of segments of said unknown sampled work signature is less than 50% of the segment size.

8. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein said predetermined hop size of each of said plurality of segments of said unknown sampled work signature is approximately 0.1 seconds.