Media content fingerprinting system

• US 9,554,176 B2
• Filed: 08/12/2013
• Issued: 01/24/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TiVo Solutions Inc. (Adeia Inc.)
• Original Assignee: TiVo Inc. (Adeia Inc.)
• Inventors: Gharaat, Amir H., Barton, James M., Patel, Mukesh K.
• Primary Examiner(s): HARVEY, DAVID E
• Application Number:
  US13/965,125
• Publication Number:
  US 20130332951A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,261 Days
• Field of Search: 725/19, 725/20
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/41 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1454 involving copying of the display data of a local workstation or window to a remote workstation or window so that an actual copy of the data is displayed simultaneously on two or more displays, e.g. teledisplay
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0244 Optimization
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/322 used signal is digitally coded
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/422 Input-only peripherals , i.e. input devices connected to specially adapted client devices, e.g. global positioning system [GPS] input devices also receiving signals from specially adapted client devices H04N21/4104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42201 biosensors, e.g. heat sensor for presence detection, EEG sensors or any limb activity sensors worn by the user input arrangements for interaction with the human body based on nervous system activity detection G06F3/015
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4415 using biometric characteristics of the user, e.g. by voice recognition or fingerprint scanning cryptography using biological data H04L9/3231; authentication in networks using biometric H04L63/0861
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/442 Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. detecting the failure of a recording device, monitoring the downstream bandwidth, the number of times a movie has been viewed, the storage space available from the internal hard disk arrangements for monitoring broadcast services or broadcast-related services H04H60/29; arrangements for identifying or recognising characteristics with a direct linkage to broadcast information H04H60/35; monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; monitoring in wireless networks H04W24/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8358 involving watermark protecting executable software by watermarking G06F21/16; image watermarking in general G06T1/0021; watermarks inserted in still images for transmission purposes H04N1/32144; inserting watermarks during video coding H04N19/467
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/765 Interface circuits between an apparatus for recording and another apparatus
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/782 on tape
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/79 Processing of colour television signals in connection with recording

Abstract

A method of deriving fingerprints for media content that is being watched by a user is described. For example, a user may select a particular show on an electronic programming guide displayed by a media device. The media device may then request the content stream, from the content source, that includes the particular show. The source may indicate whether a fingerprint is needed for the particular show requested by the media device. The indication may be a flag in the data received by the media device. If the particular show needs to be fingerprinted as indicated by the flag, the media device may decompress the corresponding video frames, load the decompressed video frames into memory and analyze the video frames to derive a fingerprint from the video frames.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

generating, by a fingerprint management engine, a fingerprint database that associate fingerprints for media content items with metadata for the media content items, the generating comprising distributing fingerprint generating for at least some of the media content items to media devices that are separate from the fingerprint management engine, the distributing including;

determining that fingerprint data for at least a portion of a media content item does not exist in the fingerprint database;

in response to determining that the fingerprint data for at least the portion of the media content item does not exist in the fingerprint database, sending a content stream to a media device of the media devices, the content stream including the media content item and a value indicating to the media device that one or more fingerprints are to be derived for the media content item;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, the distributing of the fingerprint generation further comprising:

receiving, from the media device, the one or more fingerprints for the media content item;

storing the one or more fingerprints in the fingerprint database in association with metadata for the media content item.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, the distributing of the fingerprint generation further comprising:

receiving, from the media device, one or more first fingerprints for a first portion of the media content item;

receiving, from a second media device, one or more second fingerprints for a second portion of the media content item;

storing, for the media content item, the one or more first fingerprints and the one or more second fingerprints in the fingerprint database.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising tagging one or more frames of the media content item for fingerprinting.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, the distributing of the fingerprint generation further comprising receiving, from the media device, metadata including a start position and an end position, the start position and the end position indicating a portion of the media content item for which at least one fingerprint has been derived.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the content stream is sent to the media device further in response to a content source receiving a request for the media content item from the media device.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving and responding to requests containing particular fingerprint information with particular metadata associated with the particular fingerprint information in the fingerprint database.

6. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions, which when executed by one or more processors cause performance of:

generating, by a fingerprint management engine, a fingerprint database that associates fingerprint for media content with metadata for the media content items, the generating comprising distributing fingerprint generation for at least some of the media content items to media devices that are separate from the fingerprint management engine, the distributing including;

determining that fingerprint data for at least a portion of a media content item does not exist in the fingerprint database;

in response to determining that the fingerprint data for at least the portion of the media content item does not exist in the fingerprint database, sending a content stream to a media device of the media devices, the content stream including the media content item and a value indicating to the media device that one or more fingerprints are to be derived for the media content item.

7. The medium of claim 6, the distributing of the fingerprint generation further comprising:

receiving, from the media device, the one or more fingerprints for the media content item;

storing the one or more fingerprints in the fingerprint database in association with metadata for the media content item.

8. The medium of claim 6, the distributing of the fingerprint generation further comprising:

receiving, from the media device, one or more first fingerprints for a first portion of the media content item;

receiving, from a second media device, one or more second fingerprints for a second portion of the media content item;

storing, for the media content item, the one or more first fingerprints and the one or more second fingerprints in the fingerprint database.

9. The medium of claim 6, wherein the instructions comprise further instructions, which when executed by one or more processors cause performance of:

tagging one or more frames of the media content item for fingerprinting.

10. The medium of claim 6, the distributing of the fingerprint generation further comprising:

receiving, from the media device, metadata including a start position and an end position, the start position and the end position indicating a portion of the media content item for which at least one fingerprint has been derived.

17. The medium of claim 6, wherein the content stream is sent to the media device further in response to a content source receiving a request for the media content item from the media device.

20. The medium of claim 6, wherein the instructions comprise further instructions, which when executed by one or more processors cause performance of:

receiving and responding to requests containing particular fingerprint information with particular metadata associated with the particular fingerprint information in the fingerprint database.

11. A system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more memories storing instructions, which when executed by the one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to generate a fingerprint database that associates fingerprint for media content items with metadata for the media content items, the generating comprising distributing fingerprint generation for at least some of the media content items to media devices that are separate from the system, the distributing including;

determining that fingerprint data for at least a portion of a media content item does not exist in the fingerprint database;

in response to determining that the fingerprint data for at least the portion of the media content item does not exist in the fingerprint database, sending a content stream to a media device of the media devices, the content stream including the media content item and a value indicating to the media device that one or more fingerprints are to be derived for the media content item.

12. The system of claim 11, the distributing of the fingerprint generation further comprising:

receiving, from the media device, the one or more fingerprints for the media content item;

storing the one or more fingerprints in the fingerprint database in association with metadata for the media content item.

13. The system of claim 11, the distributing of the fingerprint generation further comprising:

receiving, from the media device, one or more first fingerprints for a first portion of the media content item;

receiving, from a second media device, one or more second fingerprints for a second portion of the media content item;

storing, for the particular media content item, the one or more first fingerprints and the one or more second fingerprints in the fingerprint database.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein execution of the instructions further causes the one or more processors to:

tag one or more frames of the particular media content item for fingerprinting.

15. The system of claim 11, the distributing of the fingerprint generation further comprising:

receiving, from the media device, metadata including a start position and an end position, the start position and the end position indicating a portion of the particular media content item for which at least one fingerprint has been derived.

18. The apparatus claim 12, wherein the content stream is sent to the media device further in response to a content source receiving a request for the media content item from the media device.

21. The system claim 12, wherein execution of the instructions further causes the one or more processors to:

receiving and responding to requests containing particular fingerprint information with particular metadata associated with the particular fingerprint information in the fingerprint database.