Information providing system using video tracking

• US 8,776,104 B2
• Filed: 10/06/2010
• Issued: 07/08/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/13/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Crawler Research Institute, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Crawler Research Institute, Inc.
• Inventors: Sugiyama, Itsuo, Matsumoto, Minoru
• Primary Examiner(s): Kumar, Pankaj
• Assistant Examiner(s): ANDRAMUNO, FRANKLIN S
• Application Number:
  US13/138,979
• Publication Number:
  US 20130117772A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,371 Days
• Field of Search: 725/14, 725/135
• US Class Current: 725/14
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 5/16 using electromagnetic waves other than radio waves
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44204 Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44224 Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38

Abstract

Provided is an information providing system using video tracking, such that tracking of an original image can be performed without editing/processing the original video and without requiring a high level programming knowledge, and information can thus be easily provided. The system is configured so that an overlay screen (10) is superimposed on an original video screen (2) and displayed in synchronization with the original video, said overlay screen (10) provided with a transparent or translucent object graphic (5) acting as control information corresponding to a predetermined purpose of providing information, with respect to an object (4) represented by an original video image which is displayed on the original video screen (2) once or a plurality of times in accordance with the situation.

Claims

1. An information providing system using video tracking, wherein a transparent or semitransparent overlay screen, in which control information according to a purpose of providing predetermined information is provided on a target object represented by an original video image displayed once or a plurality of times according to scenes within an original video screen, is configured to be superimposed on the original video screen and configured to be displayed in synchronization with the original video,

the information providing system using video tracking comprising:

an original video replay unit for replaying an original video;

an object figure drawing unit for drawing an object figure being defined on the target object of the original video in synchronization with the original video replayed by the original video replay unit;

wherein the object figure drawn by the object figure drawing unit is superimposed on the original video;

an object figure video replay unit for replaying a target object figure video drawn by the object figure drawing unit;

a clock generation unit provided in the original video replay unit and generating a clock signal; and

a clock synchronization unit provided in the object figure video replay unit,

wherein a current replay clock value is read on the basis of the clock signal generated by the clock generation unit of the original video replay unit, and is transmitted to the clock synchronization unit of the object figure video replay unit so that a clock value of an object figure video replay of the object figure replay unit is set, and

the clock value of the object figure video replay unit is synchronized with the replay clock value of the original video replay unit.

2. The information providing system using video tracking according to claim 1, further comprising:

a coordinate calculation unit for calculating coordinate information at a replay clock at which a particular target object is currently displayed, from at least an initial image and a last image in a period in which the particular target object of the original video reproduced by the original video replay unit is displayed within the original video screen;

wherein the object figure drawing unit draws the object figure for specifying the target object of the original video by superimposing on the original video screen in the overlay screen on the basis of the coordinate information calculated by the coordinate calculation unit and adding the control information to the object figure; and

the object figure video replay unit replays an object figure video drawn by the object figure drawing unit in synchronization with the original video replayed by the original video replay unit.

3. The information providing system using video tracking according to claim 2, further comprising a control unit for executing at least one of the following operations, opening a predetermined web site set in advance, opening another predetermined video, and opening predetermined advertisement information, by clicking the object figure.

4. The information providing system using video tracking according to claim 2, further comprising an information statistics processing unit for collecting and statistically calculating at least one of information such as viewing ranking information about a particular target object of the original video including a number of times the object figure replayed by the object figure video replay unit is clicked, replay/stop information for each replay time of the particular target object of the original image when the object figure is clicked, viewing ranking information about a particular target object of the original video including a number of times each of a plurality of object figures arranged on the overlay screen is clicked, and viewing history information of each viewing user.

5. The information providing system using video tracking according to claim 3, wherein a communication unit is provided in the object figure video replay unit, and the communication unit communicates, via the Internet to the server apparatus, at least one of information such as viewing ranking information about a particular target object of the original video including a number of times the object figure reproduced by the object figure video replay unit is clicked, replay/stop information for each replay time of the original image when the object figure is clicked, viewing ranking information about a particular target object of the original video including a number of times each of a plurality of object figures arranged on the overlay screen is clicked, and viewing history information of each viewing user, which are collected and statistically calculated by the information statistics processing unit, and while the object figure video replay unit is operating, the communication unit transmits an alive indication signal with a regular interval, so that when the original video replay unit and object figure video replay unit are forcibly terminated by an outside, the server apparatus can recognize termination of viewing by detecting loss of the alive indication signal.

6. The information providing system using video tracking according to claim 3, further comprising an information statistics processing unit for collecting and statistically calculating at least one of information such as viewing ranking information for each replay time about a particular target object of the original video including a number of times the object figure replayed by the object figure video replay unit is clicked, replay/stop information for each replay time of the original image when the object figure is clicked, viewing ranking information about a particular target object of the original video including a number of times each of a plurality of object figures arranged on the overlay screen is clicked, and viewing history information of each viewing user.