Efficient apparatus and method for audio signature generation using audio threshold

• US 9,590,755 B2
• Filed: 05/15/2015
• Issued: 03/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/16/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alphonso, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Alphonso, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Kalampoukas, Lampros, Sun, Daniel C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsang, Fan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Siegel, David
• Application Number:
  US14/713,980
• Publication Number:
  US 20150331660A1
• Time in Patent Office: 662 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/683 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/165 Management of the audio stream, e.g. setting of volume, audio stream path
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/06 Creation of reference templates; Training of speech recognition systems, e.g. adaptation to the characteristics of the speaker's voice G10L15/14 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/018 Audio watermarking, i.e. embedding inaudible data in the audio signal
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/03 characterised by the type of extracted parameters
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/18 the extracted parameters being spectral information of each sub-band
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/27 characterised by the analysis technique
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/48 specially adapted for particular use
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/51 for comparison or discrimination
• 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: H04R 29/004 for microphones H04R29/007 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds

Abstract

An automatic content recognition system that includes a user device for the purpose of capturing audio and generating an audio signature. The user device may be a smartphone or tablet. The system is also capable of determining sound level at a user device and refraining from audio monitoring and/or generating audio signatures when the sound level is below a threshold. Sound level may also be used to reduce the frequency of audio monitoring and/or signature generation. The system may have a database within the user device or the user device may communicate with a server having a database that contains reference audio signatures.

Claims

1. An apparatus for monitoring audio information comprising:

a probe component to convert audio information to an electrical signal;

a sound level detector;

an audio signature generator responsive to said probe component and said sound level detector configured to generate an audio signature at a first frequency when the sound level is at or above a threshold and to generate an audio signature at a reduced frequency compared to the first frequency when the sound level is below a threshold;

a transmitter responsive to said audio signature generator that transmits any generated audio signature over a communication channel to a remote server for potential identification of the content represented by the audio signature.

2. An apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said probe component comprises a microphone.

3. An apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said sound level detector is frequency based.

4. An apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising a time delay element associated with said sound level detector.

9. An apparatus according to claim 1 wherein the audio signature is an audio fingerprint.

5. A method for monitoring audio information comprising the steps of:

capturing audio information using a probe component that converts audio information to an electrical signal;

determining sound level using a sound level detector;

generating an audio signature, using an audio signature generator responsive to the probe component and the sound level detector, from the captured audio information at a first frequency when the determined sound level is at or above a threshold and generating an audio signature at a reduced frequency compared to the first frequency when the determined sound level is below a threshold; and

transmitting any generated audio signature over a communication channel to a remote server for potential identification of the content represented by the audio signature.

6. A method according to claim 5 further comprising the step of scheduling the audio signature generation.

7. A method according to claim 5 wherein said step of determining sound level comprises the steps of determining sound level in a limited frequency range.

8. A method according to claim 5 further comprising the step of scheduling an audio capture.

10. A method according to claim 5 wherein the audio signature is an audio fingerprint.