Media Guidance Application Detecting Ambiguous Referee Decisions

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current systems do not provide a way for users to automatically compare the consistency of referees' decisions in sporting events with past decisions, making it difficult for viewers to assess if a referee's ruling is consistent with previous interpretations and rules.

Innovation Solution

A media guidance application that detects stoppages in sporting events, extracts metadata from audio, video, and subtitle streams to identify ambiguous decisions, and compares them with historical similar situations from other events, generating video clips of similar past decisions for display to users.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of operation

If a media guidance application automatically provides media clips of similar past referee decisions, then users can easily compare current decisions with past instances to assess consistency, but the device complexity and processing requirements increase significantly

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveease of comparing referee decisionsVSAvoidcomplexity of media guidance application

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system pre-processes and stores metadata from historical sporting events, including referee decisions and game situations, before they are needed for comparison. This preliminary indexing and categorization of past decisions allows the application to quickly retrieve and display relevant clips without performing complex real-time analysis, thus reducing the operational complexity when users want to compare decisions.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary processing layer that extracts metadata from audio, video, and subtitle streams, and compares this metadata with historical data. This intermediary layer acts as a mediator between the raw media content and the user interface, handling the complex comparison logic and data processing tasks separately from the core media playback functionality, thereby managing system complexity more effectively.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Measurement precision

If the media guidance application analyzes audio, video, and subtitle streams to identify ambiguous decisions, then the precision of detecting referee decisions improves, but the processing time and computational resources increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveprecision of detecting ambiguous decisionsVSAvoidprocessing time for analyzing media streams

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system extracts only the essential metadata from the full audio, video, and subtitle streams—specifically focusing on referee decisions, game situations, and key events—rather than analyzing the entire media content. This extraction approach isolates the critical information needed for comparison while discarding redundant data, thereby improving detection precision without requiring exhaustive processing of all media elements.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The application performs partial analysis by focusing specifically on segments of the media streams where referee decisions occur, rather than continuously analyzing the entire broadcast. By targeting only the relevant portions (stoppages, referee communications, decision moments), the system achieves high precision in identifying ambiguous decisions while minimizing the overall processing time and computational burden.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #16Partial or excessive action

3Loss of information

If the system generates and displays video clips of historical similar situations, then the information completeness for users improves, but the data transmission and storage requirements increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecompleteness of referee decision informationVSAvoidvolume of media data to process

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

Instead of transmitting or storing complete video clips of historical decisions, the system creates simplified copies or representations of the essential information—such as metadata summaries, key frame images, or condensed video segments—that capture the critical aspects of past referee decisions. These copied representations provide users with sufficient information for comparison while occupying significantly less storage space and requiring less data transmission bandwidth.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #26Copying

Data Source

PatentUS10477254B1Systems and methods for providing media content related to a detected ambiguous situation during a sporting event

Publication Date: 2019.11.12 ADEIA GUIDES INC

AI summary

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for providing media clips that depict referee's decisions that are similar to a decision made in a sporting event being currently consumed by the user. A media guidance application may be configured to perform the actions described herein. Specifically, the media guidance application may determine, that an officiator of the sporting event stopped play for a specific situation. In response, the media guidance application may extract metadata that corresponds to the specific situation and compare the metadata that corresponds to the specific situation with metadata for similar situations that occurred in other similar sporting events. The media guidance application may identify a similar situation or event that occurred in another similar sporting event (e.g., the same sport) and generate for display video of the similar situation.