Methods and apparatus to adjust signature matching results for audience measurement

• US 9,124,379 B2
• Filed: 07/25/2012
• Issued: 09/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/09/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nielsen Company (US) LLC (RR Donnelley & Sons Company)
• Original Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Inventors: Lee, Morris
• Primary Examiner(s): HANCE, ROBERT J
• Application Number:
  US13/557,989
• Publication Number:
  US 20120304212A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,133 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/372 Programme
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/45 for identifying users
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/46 for recognising users' preferences
• 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 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• 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 21/44222 Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44231 Monitoring of peripheral device or external card, e.g. to detect processing problems in a handheld device or the failure of an external recording device configuring of peripheral devices in general G06F9/4411; reporting information sensed by appliance or service execution status of appliance services in a home automation network H04L12/2823; monitoring the status of connected device in data switched networks H04L43/0817

Abstract

Methods and apparatus to adjust signature matching results for audience measurement are disclosed. An example method to adjust a signature matching result associated with monitoring a media presentation disclosed herein comprises obtaining, from a monitoring device, an audio signature representative of the monitored media presentation, obtaining, from the monitoring device, an environmental characteristic associated with the audio signature, and adjusting the signature matching result using an adjustment value when the audio signature is determined to match a reference signature representative of reference media, the adjustment value being selected from a plurality of adjustment values based on the matched reference signature and the environmental characteristic.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring a media presentation, the method comprising:

obtaining, from a monitoring device, a first signature representative of the monitored media presentation;

obtaining, from the monitoring device, an environmental characteristic associated with the first signature; and

adjusting a signature matching rate, which corresponds to a number of times signatures obtained from the monitoring device are determined to match corresponding reference signatures representative of first reference media during a measurement time interval, using a first adjustment value when the first signature is determined to match a first reference signature representative of the first reference media, the first adjustment value being selected from a plurality of adjustment values based on the matched first reference media and the environmental characteristic.

2. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein the environmental characteristic includes at least one of a volume level or an ambient noise level measured by the monitoring device.

3. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein the environmental characteristic includes information descriptive of at least one of the monitoring device, a configuration of the monitoring device, a media device presenting the monitored media presentation or a configuration of the media device.

4. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein adjusting the signature matching rate includes scaling the signature matching rate by the first adjustment value.

5. A method as defined in claim 1 further including selecting the first adjustment value from a set of adjustment values associated with the first reference media, each adjustment value in the set of adjustment values being associated with a respective one or a respective combination of environmental characteristics.

6. A method for monitoring a media presentation, the method comprising:

presenting reference media in a controlled environment having a first configuration setting from a plurality of possible configuration settings;

determining a set of test signatures by monitoring the presentation of the reference media in the controlled environment;

counting a number of successful matches between the set of test signatures and a respective set of reference signatures representative of the reference media to determine an adjustment value;

storing the adjustment value in memory for subsequent selection to adjust a signature matching result, the adjustment value to be selected when an environmental characteristic associated with a first signature representative of the monitored media presentation corresponds to the first configuration setting;

obtaining, from a monitoring device, the first signature representative of the monitored media presentation;

obtaining, from the monitoring device, the environmental characteristic associated with the first signature; and

adjusting the signature matching result using the adjustment value when the first signature is determined to match a reference signature representative of the reference media, the adjustment value being selected from a plurality of adjustment values based on the matched reference signature and the environmental characteristic.

7. A method as defined in claim 6 wherein the first configuration setting corresponds to a first volume setting of a media device included in the controlled environment to present the reference media and a first ambient noise setting of an ambient noise generator included in the controlled environment.

8. A tangible machine readable storage device or storage disk comprising machine readable instructions which, when executed, cause a machine to at least:

adjust a signature matching rate using a first adjustment value when a first signature representative of a monitored media presentation is determined to match a first reference signature representative of first reference media, the first adjustment value being selected from a plurality of adjustment values based on the matched first reference media and an environmental characteristic associated with the first signature representative of the monitored media presentation, the signature matching rate corresponding to a number of times signatures representative of the monitored media presentation are determined to match corresponding reference signatures representative of the first reference media during measurement time interval.

9. A storage device or storage disk as defined in claim 8 wherein the environmental characteristic includes at least one of a volume level or an ambient noise level measured by a monitoring device.

10. A storage medium device or storage disk as defined in claim 8 wherein the environmental characteristic includes information descriptive of at least one of a monitoring device, a configuration of the monitoring device, a media device presenting the monitored media presentation or a configuration of the media device.

11. A tangible machine readable storage device or storage disk comprising machine readable instructions which, when executed, cause a machine to at least:

present reference media in a controlled environment having a first configuration setting from a plurality of possible configuration settings;

determine a set of test signatures by monitoring the presentation of the reference media in the controlled environment;

count a number of successful matches between the set of test signatures matches and a respective set of reference signatures representative of the reference media to determine an adjustment value; and

store the adjustment value in memory for subsequent selection to adjust a signature matching result, the adjustment value to be selected when an environmental characteristic associated with a first signature representative of a monitored media presentation corresponds to the first configuration setting; and

adjust the signature matching result using the adjustment value when a first signature representative of the monitored media presentation is determined to match a reference signature representative of reference media, the adjustment value being selected from a plurality of adjustment values based on the matched reference signature and the environmental characteristic associated with the first signature.

12. An apparatus to adjust a signature matching rate associated with monitoring a media presentation, the apparatus comprising:

a signature comparator to compare a first signature representative of the monitored media presentation with a plurality of reference signatures representative of a plurality of reference media sources; and

a match rate adjuster to adjust the signature matching rate using a first adjustment value when the first signature is determined to match a reference signature representative of a first reference media source from the plurality of reference media sources, the signature matching rate being representative of a frequency with which reference signatures representative of the first reference media source are successfully matched during a measurement time interval, the first adjustment value being selected based on the matched reference signature and a first environmental characteristic associated with the first signature, the first environmental characteristic and the first signature being obtained from a same monitoring device.

13. An apparatus as defined in claim 12 wherein the first environmental characteristic includes at least one of a volume level or an ambient noise level measured by the monitoring device.

14. An apparatus as defined in claim 12 wherein the first environmental characteristic includes information descriptive of at least one of the monitoring device, a configuration of the monitoring device, a media device presenting the monitored media presentation or a configuration of the media device.

15. An apparatus as defined in claim 12 wherein the signature matching rate is a first signature matching rate, and the match rate adjuster is to further adjust a second signature matching rate using a second adjustment value when a second signature obtained from the monitoring device is determined to match a second reference signature representative of a second reference media source, the second adjustment value being selected based on the matched second reference signature and a second environmental characteristic associated with the second signature obtained from the monitoring device, the second environmental characteristic being obtained from the monitoring device.

16. An apparatus as defined in claim 15 wherein the first environmental characteristic corresponds to at least one of a first volume level or a first ambient noise level, and the second environmental characteristic corresponds to at least one of a second volume level or a second ambient noise level.

17. An apparatus as defined in claim 12 further including memory to store a plurality of adjustment values corresponding to the plurality of reference signatures and to a plurality of environmental characteristics, each adjustment value associated with a respective reference signature and a respective combination of environmental characteristics.

18. An apparatus as defined in claim 12 further including a signature tester to:

present the first reference media source in a controlled environment having a first configuration setting from a plurality of possible configuration settings;

determine a first set of test signatures by monitoring the presentation of the first reference media source in the controlled environment;

determine a first ratio of a number of successful matches of the first set of test signatures with a respective set of reference signatures representative of the first reference media source to a total size of the first set of test signatures to determine the first adjustment value; and

store the first adjustment value in memory for subsequent selection to adjust the signature matching rate, the first adjustment value to be selected when the first environmental characteristic corresponds to the first configuration setting.

19. An apparatus as defined in claim 18 wherein the signature tester is further to:

present the first reference media source in the controlled environment having a second configuration setting from the plurality of possible configuration settings;

determine a second set of test signatures by monitoring the presentation of the first reference media source in the controlled environment;

determine a second ratio of a number of successful matches of the second set of test signatures matches with the respective set of reference signatures representative of the first reference media source to a total size of the second set of test signatures to determine a second adjustment value; and

scale the first adjustment value by the second adjustment value before storing the first adjustment value in memory.