TV Program Identification via Image Capture and Server Matching
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional methods for identifying TV programs are inaccurate due to users' inability to acquire the correct keyword, leading to incorrect program identification when trying to continue watching a program.
Innovation Solution
A mobile terminal with an image sensor captures images of the TV program and sends them to a remote server, which compares them to an image library to determine the program identity, generating a hyperlink for seamless continuation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If users manually input keywords to identify TV programs, then the operation process is simple, but the identification accuracy is low due to inability to acquire correct keywords
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically captures images from the TV screen and performs program identification without requiring manual keyword input from users. The terminal device autonomously extracts visual features and compares them with the image library to identify programs, eliminating the need for users to manually acquire or input keywords while maintaining high identification accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical manual input method (typing keywords on keyboard or touching screen) with an automated image-based recognition system. The image sensor captures visual information from the TV display, and the processing system automatically matches images against a database to identify programs, substituting manual mechanical operations with automated optical recognition.
2Loss of time
If users manually search for programs using keywords, then the device complexity is low, but the time required for program identification increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-builds a comprehensive image library containing frames from various TV programs during normal operation. When program identification is needed, the system simply extracts features from the current screen image and matches them against the pre-existing library, eliminating the need for real-time complex analysis and significantly reducing identification time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an image library as an intermediary data structure that bridges the TV display and the identification system. Instead of directly analyzing complex video streams or requiring sophisticated real-time recognition algorithms, the system uses pre-extracted images as intermediaries for rapid matching, simplifying the overall processing complexity while reducing search time.
3Measurement precision
If the system uses image-based identification, then the identification accuracy is improved, but the device complexity increases due to image sensor and processing requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential visual information (images) from the TV display at key moments rather than processing the entire video stream. By selectively capturing and storing representative frames in the image library, the system reduces the amount of data that needs to be processed while maintaining identification accuracy, thus managing device complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter of information representation from continuous video signals to discrete extracted images. This transformation simplifies the processing requirements by working with static image data rather than dynamic video streams, making the image-based identification system more manageable while maintaining high accuracy through effective image feature extraction and matching.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for retrieving and playing a TV program uses a mobile terminal. The mobile terminal captures one or more images of a TV program currently played on a TV using the image sensor and sends the images to a remote server. The remote server extracts a TV station identifier from the received images, compares the received images with images stored in an image library and corresponding to the TV station identifier, and determines an identity of the TV program when there is a match, generates an information record for the TV program, and returns the TV program information record to the mobile terminal, the TV program information record including a hyperlink to the TV program. After receiving the TV program information record from the remote server, the mobile terminal displays the hyperlink on the display of the mobile terminal.