Client Tuner Fingerprinting for Content Verification

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Solution Overview

Problem

There is no centralized system to identify and verify all multimedia content transmitted over the air and clear QAM cable to consumer televisions, and existing methods lack the ability to determine if specific commercials are being aired in particular regions or if tuners are turned off.

Innovation Solution

A software application on consumer devices with tuner capabilities generates digital video fingerprints, bundles them with metadata, and uploads them to a network server for verification, allowing the server to validate content and commercial presence, and can wake up inactive tuners to perform fingerprinting.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If a centralized system is established to identify and verify all multimedia content, then content verification capability is improved, but system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontent verification capabilityVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system divides content verification into two segments: client-side fingerprint generation and server-side verification. Each tuner device independently generates fingerprints locally, then uploads them to the server for verification. This segmentation allows distributed participation without requiring a fully centralized system, thus improving verification coverage while controlling system complexity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The invention makes tuner devices universal by enabling them to perform multiple functions: receiving content, generating fingerprints, bundling metadata, and uploading data. This multi-functionality at the client level reduces the burden on a centralized system while maintaining comprehensive verification capability across all devices.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

2Measurement precision

If tuner devices are required to be continuously active for fingerprinting, then content identification accuracy is improved, but energy consumption increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontent identification accuracyVSAvoidtuner device energy consumption

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by having tuners generate and cache fingerprints during active viewing periods. These pre-generated fingerprints are then used for verification even when the tuner is inactive, eliminating the need for continuous operation while maintaining identification accuracy.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The server sends feedback signals to inactive tuners to wake them up and perform fingerprinting when needed. This feedback mechanism ensures that tuners operate only when necessary, balancing energy consumption with the need for accurate content identification through selective activation rather than continuous operation.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

3Adaptability or versatility

If commercial content is inserted at multiple levels (national and local), then advertising flexibility is improved, but content verification difficulty increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveadvertising flexibilityVSAvoidcontent verification difficulty

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSDifficulty of detecting and measuring

Solution Approach 1:

The system addresses local quality by capturing fingerprints at the local level with associated metadata indicating the specific commercial content and region. This allows the system to verify content specific to each local market while maintaining the ability to handle national-level content, thus managing verification complexity through localized processing.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The server acts as an intermediary that receives fingerprints and metadata from multiple local tuners, processes them centrally, and compares them against known content databases. This intermediary function consolidates the verification complexity at the server level while allowing flexible commercial content insertion at various levels without increasing client-side difficulty.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

4Quantity of substance

If fraudulent fingerprints are uploaded to the database, then database size increases, but system reliability decreases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedatabase sizeVSAvoidsystem reliability

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The server implements feedback mechanisms to verify and validate fingerprints before adding them to the database. By checking uploaded fingerprints against known content and cross-referencing with metadata, the system can reject fraudulent entries while accepting legitimate ones, thus maintaining database integrity and reliability without arbitrarily limiting database size.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

Data Source

PatentUS9414129B2Using client tuner devices to provide content fingerprinting in a networked system

Publication Date: 2016.08.09 VIZIO INC

AI summary

A tuner device, such as a television set, set top box, game console, personal computer with a dongle or device, creates digital fingerprints indicative of information received over a channel. The digital fingerprints are uploaded to a server along with metadata indicative of the specific tuner device that obtain them. The server maintains a tuner database based on that information, and can automatically request new fingerprints.