초록 ▼

A method and apparatus for identifying programs such as television programs received from various sources detects the occurrence of predetermined events such as scene changes in a video signal and extracts a signature from the video signal. The signatures and the times of occurrence of the signature

A method and apparatus for identifying programs such as television programs received from various sources detects the occurrence of predetermined events such as scene changes in a video signal and extracts a signature from the video signal. The signatures and the times of occurrence of the signatures are stored and subsequently compared with reference signatures to identify the program. The signatures may be compared in pairs to increase resolution, and the time interval between events or signatures may also be used to identify the program, either by themselves or in conjunction with the signatures.

대표청구항 ▼

A method of identifying a signal received by an audience member\s television receiver for determining audience ratings comprising the steps of: detecting the occurence of a first event in the functional operations of he audience namber\s televison receiver; detecting the occurence of a second event

A method of identifying a signal received by an audience member\s television receiver for determining audience ratings comprising the steps of: detecting the occurence of a first event in the functional operations of he audience namber\s televison receiver; detecting the occurence of a second event after the detected first event in the signal to be identified; extracting a signature from a single frame of the video signal to be identified after the occurrence of the second event; storing the signature and the time of occurence thereof; and comparing the stored signature with reference signatures that occurred at approximately the same time as the stored signature. A method for identifying signals for determining audience ratings comprising the steps of operating on the signal to be identified in order to extract a feature string, comparing the feature string with various feature strings corresponding to known signals and identifying the signal when the feature string of the signal to be identified correlates with one of the feature strings corresponding to a known signal within a predetermined tolerence, wherein the step of extracting the feature string from the signal to be identified comprises the steps of: monitoring predetermined changes in a predetermined parameter of the signal to be identified; determining the time intervals between the predetermined changes in the predetermined parameter; and utilizing the time intervals between successive predetermined changes to generate the feature string, the feature string being a digital representation of a predefined number of said time intervals. A method of identifying a television signal received from either a television receiver or a video recorder for determining audience viewing habits comprising the steps of: detecting predetermined operational modes of the audience member\s television receiver and the video recorder; detecting the occurence of a first event in one of the operational modes; detecting the occurence of a second event in the signal to be identified; extracting a signature from a single frame of the video signal to be identified after the occurence of the second event; and storing the extracted signature, the time of the signature extraction and the detected operational mode.