Use of watermarking to trigger fingerprint-related action

A media client comprising:

• a processing unit;
• and
• non-transitory data storage coupled to the processing unit, wherein the processing unit is configured to:
• extract, from an out-of-band signal, a watermark payload including an advertisement identifier of an upcoming advertisement in a media stream being processed by the media client, wherein the watermark payload is based on transport stream metadata associated with the media stream;
• receive digital reference fingerprints representing the upcoming advertisement corresponding to the advertisement identifier;
• transition from generating digital query fingerprints representing the media stream at a first non-zero fingerprint-generation rate to a second fingerprint-generation rate that is greater than the first non-zero fingerprint-generation rate;
• and
• compare digital query fingerprints generated at the second fingerprint-generation rate with the digital reference fingerprints to determine when in the media stream the upcoming advertisement begins.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that when executed by a processing unit of a media client, cause the media client to perform operations, the operations comprising:

• extracting, from an out-of-band signal, a watermark payload including an advertisement identifier of an upcoming advertisement in a media stream being processed by the media client, wherein the watermark payload is based on transport stream metadata associated with the media stream;
• receiving digital reference fingerprints representing the upcoming advertisement corresponding to the advertisement identifier;
• transitioning from generating digital query fingerprints representing the media stream at a first non-zero fingerprint-generation rate to a second fingerprint-generation rate that is greater than the first non-zero fingerprint-generation rate;
• and
• comparing digital query fingerprints generated at the second fingerprint-generation rate with the digital reference fingerprints to determine when in the media stream the upcoming advertisement begins.