Watermark-Aided Channel Identification in Fingerprint-Based ACR
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Solution Overview
Problem
Content presentation devices lack the ability to determine which channel of media content they are rendering, leading to ambiguity in fingerprint-based automatic content recognition (ACR) when the same media content is provided on multiple channels, and existing methods fail to disambiguate such ambiguities effectively.
Innovation Solution
Utilizing steganographically-encoded watermarks in media content to provide channel-specific identifiers (SIDs) that are decoded by the content presentation device, allowing the fingerprint-matching server to resolve channel-multi-matches by correlating watermark data with fingerprint-based ACR results.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If fingerprint-based ACR is used to identify channels, then content recognition capability is improved, but channel identification accuracy deteriorates when multiple channels broadcast the same content
Solution Approach 1:
The channel identification system is segmented into two independent components: fingerprint-based content recognition and watermark-based channel identification. The watermark embedded in the media content stream provides a unique channel identifier that operates separately from the content fingerprinting process, allowing the system to maintain both content recognition capability and precise channel identification even when multiple channels broadcast identical content.
2Measurement precision
If steganographically-encoded watermarks are added to media content, then channel identification accuracy is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The channel identification watermark is embedded in the media content during the content distribution process, before the content reaches the content presentation device. This preliminary encoding ensures that the watermark is already present in the content stream, eliminating the need for complex real-time watermark embedding hardware or software at the presentation device, thereby reducing device complexity while maintaining high identification accuracy.
3Speed
If watermark decoding is performed at the content presentation device, then channel identification speed is improved, but processing load increases
Solution Approach 1:
The content presentation device autonomously decodes the watermark from the received media content stream to obtain channel identification information. This self-service approach eliminates the need for external assistance or complex coordination with other system components, enabling fast channel identification while keeping the processing load confined to a single device without requiring additional computational resources across the network.
Data Source
AI summary
The disclosure provides for use of steganographically-encoded data as a basis to disambiguated a fingerprint-based channel-multimatch. A fingerprint-matching server or other entity could detect a channel-multi-match scenario by determining that query fingerprints representing media content being rendered by a content presentation device match reference fingerprints respectively representing multiple channels. In view of that detected channel-multi-match scenario, the content presentation device could then provide channel-identification information that the content presentation device extracts from a watermark that is steganographically encoded in the media content of the channel that the content presentation device is rendering, for use of the extracted channel-identification information to determine which channel the content presentation device is rendering. Identifying the channel being rendered could then facilitate channel-specific action, such as then detecting a content-modification opportunity on the identified channel and preparing and enabling the content presentation device to carry out an associated content modification.