Method and apparatus for selection of content from a stream of data

摘要

A main stream contains successive content elements of video and/or audio information that encode video and/or audio information at a first data rate. A computation circuit (144) computes main fingerprints from the successive content elements. A reference stream is received having a second data rate lower than the first data rate. The reference stream defines a sequence of the reference fingerprints. A comparator unit (144) compares the main fingerprints with the reference fingerprints. The main stream is monitored for the presence of inserted content elements between original content elements, where the original content elements have main fingerprints that match successive reference fingerprints and the inserted content elements have main fingerprints that do not match reference fingerprints. Rendering of inserted content elements to be skipped. In an embodiment when more than one content element matches only one is rendered. In another embodiment matching is used to control zapping to or from the main stream. In another embodiment matching is used to control linking of separately received mark-up information such as subtitles to points in the main stream.

主权项

1. An apparatus comprising:
a processor configured by a comparator unit to:
receive a main datastream and a reference datastream,
the main datastream including main content elements intermixed with inserted content elements,the reference datastream having a different data rate than the main datastream and including reference fingerprints of the main content elements of the main datastream;compute main fingerprints from at least some of the main content elements included in the main datastream; and a control unit configured to select the main content elements from the main datastream based on a comparison of the main fingerprints to the reference fingerprints.