Method and apparatus for reducing and restoring the effectiveness of a commercial skip system

摘要

A method and apparatus is disclosed which reduces or removes the effectiveness of commercial skip systems such as presently found in VCRs, PVRs, etc. which are designed to delete commercials from signal material upon playback of a previously recorded version of the signal material. In an embodiment, the effectiveness of the commercial skip system is reduced or removed by adding a flat field of selected signal level to active line portions of video lines of the signal material. Other embodiments modify the normal fade to black signal indicative of a commercial to provide a fade to non-black signal. In further embodiments, a fade to non-black signal is inserted in an overscan area of the signal picture. Still further embodiments modify audio signals or selected signals in the horizontal blanking interval which may be used in commercial skip systems to detect the presence of commercials.

主权项

1. A method for processing a media signal to indicate the presence of a commercial in the media signal, the method comprising:
receiving the media signal; storing a signal measurement value; monitoring the media signal; while monitoring the media signal, updating the stored signal measurement value based on the monitoring; updating a threshold value based on the updated signal measurement value; determining if the media signal is transitioning to the commercial based on the updated signal measurement value and the updated threshold value; and indicating the presence of the commercial based on the determination.