Abandonment Watermarking for Dynamic Content Modification Control

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Solution Overview

Problem

Content presentation devices lack the ability to determine which channel they are rendering media content from, as this information is typically held by connected receivers or servers, making it difficult to perform channel-specific operations like dynamic content modification without explicit channel selection or involvement of channel-selection devices.

Innovation Solution

Implementing fingerprint-based automatic content recognition (ACR) to identify channels by comparing query fingerprints generated from rendered media content with reference fingerprints stored in a server, allowing for dynamic content modification and advertisement insertion, while using watermarking to abandon modifications when necessary.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If fingerprint-based ACR is implemented to identify channels, then channel identification capability is improved, but device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvechannel identification accuracyVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

An ACR server acts as an intermediary between the content presentation device and the channel identification system. The server receives query fingerprints from the device, compares them against reference fingerprints, and returns channel identification results. This mediator approach enables accurate channel identification without burdening the content presentation device with complex fingerprint processing capabilities.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The system enables self-service channel identification by automatically generating query fingerprints from rendered media content, transmitting them to the ACR server, and applying identified channel-specific modifications without requiring explicit user input or manual channel selection. The watermark detection and content modification processes occur autonomously based on identified channel characteristics.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

2Adaptability or versatility

If dynamic content modification is applied, then content adaptability is improved, but reliability deteriorates due to potential abandonment issues

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecontent modification capabilityVSAvoidcontent modification reliability
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The system continuously monitors the media stream for abandonment watermarks during content modification operations. When a watermark is detected, the system immediately terminates the ongoing modification and reverts to the original content. This feedback mechanism ensures that dynamic content modifications are reliably controlled and can be aborted when conditions change, such as emergency alerts or channel switches.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

Solution Approach 2:

The system embeds abandonment watermarks into the media stream in advance, before dynamic content modifications are applied. These pre-placed watermarks serve as predetermined signals that trigger modification abandonment when detected, allowing the system to prepare for potential content changes while maintaining the ability to revert if necessary.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

3Speed

If watermarking is used to control modification abandonment, then response speed is improved, but manufacturing precision worsens due to watermark encoding complexity

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvemodification abandonment speedVSAvoidwatermark encoding precision
Core Design Contradiction:
SpeedVSManufacturing precision

Solution Approach 1:

The system extracts abandonment control functionality from the complex watermark encoding process by using standardized, pre-defined watermark patterns that can be easily detected. Rather than encoding complex control signals, the system uses simple presence/absence detection of specific watermark patterns to trigger abandonment, reducing the precision requirements for watermark encoding while maintaining fast response capability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentEP4008112B1Use of watermarking to control abandonment of dynamic content modification
Publication Date: 2025.01.15 ROKU INC
  • EP4008112B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP4008112B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP4008112B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

The disclosure provides for use of watermarking as a basis control abandonment of dynamic content modification. Upon detecting of the occurrence of a trigger event for causing a content presentation device to abandon a dynamic content modification with respect to a media stream being delivered to the content presentation device, an entity encodes into the media stream an abandonment-watermark interpretable by the content presentation device to cause the content presentation device to abandon the dynamic content modification. The content presentation device then detects the abandonment-watermark in the media stream being received by the content presentation device and in response to the abandonment-watermark, abandons the dynamic content modification.