Temporal Video Fingerprint Metadata Synchronization
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The synchronization of metadata with audiovisual content is often lost during transmission, processing, and storage in digital television broadcasting, leading to confusion and poor viewer experiences due to ambiguous interpretations of standards like SCTE 35, resulting in incorrect triggering of events and loss of metadata during format conversions.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that utilize temporal video fingerprints to synchronize metadata with audiovisual content by generating and comparing timestamps associated with visual transitions, allowing for precise insertion of metadata and correction of timing errors across different devices and formats.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If SCTE 35 metadata signaling is used in digital television broadcasting, then commercial insertion and content replacement can be enabled, but metadata synchronization is lost during transmission and processing leading to incorrect event triggering
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary synchronization mechanism that uses visual transition detection and temporal video fingerprints as a mediator between the metadata signaling system and the audiovisual content. This intermediary layer detects actual visual transitions in the video stream and uses them to recalibrate metadata timing, thereby maintaining synchronization accuracy despite transmission and processing delays.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements a feedback loop where metadata timing is continuously monitored against actual visual transitions in the video stream. When synchronization drift is detected, the system uses the detected transitions as feedback to correct and recalibrate the metadata timing, ensuring ongoing accuracy throughout transmission and processing.
2Adaptability or versatility
If metadata is transmitted through multiple distribution channels and format conversions, then content reachability is improved, but metadata is lost or desynchronized during processing
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by detecting and timestamping visual transitions in the video stream before metadata is inserted or processed. These pre-established temporal markers serve as reference points that guide subsequent metadata placement and synchronization, ensuring metadata survives format conversions and channel transmissions without losing its temporal accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates copies of temporal reference information in the form of temporal video fingerprints that are embedded with the video content. These fingerprints are replicated across different distribution channels and format conversions, serving as portable synchronization references that preserve metadata timing information regardless of the transmission medium.
3Adaptability or versatility
If different content providers use different metadata configurations according to SCTE 35 standard, then standard compliance is maintained, but confusion arises for distributors receiving content from multiple providers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal synchronization mechanism based on visual transition detection that works independently of the specific metadata configuration or content provider. This universal approach to timing calibration serves all content providers equally, providing a common reference framework that simplifies distributor processing regardless of the varied metadata configurations received from different sources.
Data Source
AI summary
An example method comprises receiving, at a first digital device, video data, scanning video content of the video data for visual transitions within the video content between consecutive frames of the video data, each transition indicating significant visual transitions relative to other frames of the video data, timestamping each visual transition and create a first set of temporal video fingerprints, identifying items of metadata to be associated with the video data, identifying a location within the video data using the temporal video fingerprints for the identified items of metadata, generating a metadata index identifying each item of metadata and a location for each item of metadata relative to the video data using at least one of the temporal video fingerprints, and transmitting, at the first digital device, the video data, the first set of temporal video fingerprints, and the metadata index to a different digital device.