Audio Fingerprinting for TV Content Recognition
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems fail to effectively associate audio content with multimedia programs on televisions and consumer electronic devices, lacking sufficient metadata and facing obstacles in collecting viewer listening preferences, due to limited program guide information and disparate data sources.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that uses a server and user device to generate and associate audio fingerprints with program identifiers, retrieving metadata by transmitting request packets over a network, linking audio information with program guide data to provide users with associated content and metadata.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Difficulty of detecting and measuring
If audio fingerprinting is brought to televisions and consumer electronic devices to associate songs with content, then content recognition capability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a server as an intermediary component that handles the complex audio fingerprinting and content association tasks. The user device simply generates audio fingerprints and transmits them to the server, which then performs the heavy computational work of matching fingerprints with content metadata. This mediator approach allows content recognition capability to improve without significantly increasing the complexity of the user device itself.
Solution Approach 2:
The system is divided into separate functional components: a user device for capturing audio and generating fingerprints, and a server for processing, matching, and providing metadata. This segmentation allows each component to be optimized independently - the user device remains simple while the server handles the computational complexity, thereby improving content recognition capability without overburdening the user device.
2Ease of operation
If program guide information is displayed on-screen to provide content information, then user interaction capability is improved, but loss of information occurs when audio content cannot be associated with programs
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback by using audio fingerprints extracted from the actual audio content to query and retrieve associated program metadata. The audio fingerprint serves as a feedback mechanism that bridges the gap between what is actually playing and the program guide information, enabling the system to automatically associate and display relevant content information even when traditional program guide data is insufficient or inaccurate.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the traditional mechanical approach of relying solely on program guide information display with an automated audio-based identification system. Instead of manually navigating program guides, the system uses audio fingerprinting technology to automatically identify and retrieve associated content information, thereby improving user interaction capability while preventing information loss through automated association.
3Adaptability or versatility
If viewer listening preferences are collected and associated with programs, then data sharing capability is improved, but obstacles in mining and deployment remain
Solution Approach 1:
The server acts as an intermediary that collects audio fingerprints from multiple users, associates them with program data, and stores the relationships in a database. This centralized mediator handles the complex data mining and association tasks, enabling versatile data sharing capabilities across different devices and users while keeping individual device complexity manageable through distributed processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The system merges disparate data sources including audio fingerprints, program guide information, and viewer preferences into a unified database structure. By combining these different data types and associating them through common identifiers, the system enables versatile data sharing and analysis capabilities while managing complexity through integrated data storage and retrieval mechanisms.
Data Source
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AI summary
An audio portion of content, such as an audio stream, is associated with a multimedia program. A server receives an audio fingerprint and a program identifier from a network and associates the audio fingerprint with an audio identifier. A request packet including the program identifier is transmitted over the network to request program guide information associated with the program identifier. The program data including the program guide information is received from the network and metadata associated with the audio identifier and the program data are transmitted onto the network. A user device initiates a request for the metadata by using an audio fingerprint and the program identifier.