IDENTIFYING COMMERCIAL BREAKS IN BROADCAST MEDIA

• US 20110202949A1
• Filed: 04/28/2011
• Published: 08/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Spot411 Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Spot411 Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Glitsch, Hans M., Shah, Ajay
• Granted Patent: US 8,789,084 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/433 using audio data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4393 Multimedia presentations, e.g. slide shows, multimedia albums
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2407 Monitoring of transmitted content, e.g. distribution time, number of downloads arrangements for monitoring programmes for broadcast or for distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/14
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4394 involving operations for analysing the audio stream, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in audio streams arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58

Abstract

An audio channel of a time-based media presentation provides a basis for synchronizing to the presentation across a variety of platforms independent of when and where the presentation is being viewed. By pre-processing the media into a series of non-unique hashes, and similarly processing an audio stream of the media captured at a client device, a comparison can be made that yields an accurate time offset within the presentation. The comparison may usefully be performed over a data network using a server that hosts data from the pre-processed media, and a variety of applications may be deployed on the client device based on the resulting synchronization.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a plurality of hashes of audio content over a data network from a plurality of client devices exposed to a television broadcast; and

identifying an occurrence of a commercial break in the television broadcast based upon variations in concurrent ones of the plurality of hashes received from different ones of the client devices.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising identifying a channel change in proximity to one of the plurality of client devices based upon a variation in the ones of the plurality of hashes received from the one of the plurality of client devices and other ones of the plurality of hashes received concurrently from other ones of the plurality of client devices.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising inferring a geographic proximity among two or more of the plurality of client devices based upon a similarity of concurrent ones of the plurality of hashes received from the two or more of the plurality of client devices during the commercial break.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining whether a local advertisement or a network advertisement is being aired during the commercial break based upon variations among the plurality of hashes received from different ones of the plurality of client devices.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of client devices include one or more of a laptop computer, a notebook computer, a netbook computer, a cellular phone, and a personal digital device.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein each one of the plurality of hashes includes a processed representation of digital samples of the audio content captured by each one of the plurality of client devices.

7. A computer program product embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium, the computer program product comprising computer executable code that, when executing on one or more computing devices, performs the steps of:

receiving a plurality of hashes of audio content over a data network from a plurality of client devices exposed to a television broadcast; and

identifying an occurrence of a commercial break in the television broadcast based upon variations in concurrent ones of the plurality of hashes received from different ones of the client devices.

8. The computer program product of claim 7 further comprising code that performs the step of identifying a channel change in proximity to one of the plurality of client devices based upon a variation in the ones of the plurality of hashes received from the one of the plurality of client devices and other ones of the plurality of hashes received concurrently from other ones of the plurality of client devices.

9. The computer program product of claim 7 further comprising code that performs the step of inferring a geographic proximity among two or more of the plurality of client devices based upon a similarity of concurrent ones of the plurality of hashes received from the two or more of the plurality of client devices during the commercial break.

10. The computer program product of claim 7 further comprising code that performs the step of determining whether a local advertisement or a network advertisement is being aired during the commercial break based upon variations among the plurality of hashes received from different ones of the plurality of client devices.

11. The computer program product of claim 7 wherein the plurality of client devices include one or more of a laptop computer, a notebook computer, a netbook computer, a cellular phone, and a personal digital device.

12. The computer program product of claim 7 wherein each one of the plurality of hashes includes a processed representation of digital samples of the audio content captured by each one of the plurality of client devices.