# US 2014/0208339 A1 · Methods and apparatus for audience measurement using global signature representation and matching

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- Number: US 2014/0208339 A1
- Document ID: US20140208339A1
- Status: Published application
- Kind: A1
- Application number: 14/223,526
- Filed: 2014-03-24
- Published: 2014-07-24
- Earliest claimed: 2007-08-15
- Assignees: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC
- Applicants: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC.
- Inventors: Kevin Keqiang Deng
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20140208339A1

## CPC

- H04N 21/44224: {Monitoring of user activity on external systems, e.g. Internet browsing}
- H04H 60/31: Arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services
- H04H 60/37: for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID
- H04H 60/40: for identifying broadcast time
- H04H 60/56: Arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition covered by groups H04H60/29-H04H60/54
- H04N: PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
- H04H: BROADCAST COMMUNICATION (multiplex communication H04J; pictorial communication aspects of broadcast systems H04N)

## Abstract

Disclosed example methods to determine a time offset between a first media signature having a first sequence of first data pairs and a second media signature having a second sequence of second data pairs include comparing ones of the first data pairs in the first sequence with ones of the second data pairs in the second sequence to determine original time differences between respective combinations of the ones of the first data pairs and the ones of the second data pairs. Such example methods also include scaling and truncating the original time differences to determine scaled time differences between respective combinations of the ones of the first data pairs and the ones of the second data pairs. Such example methods further include determining a histogram comprising bins representative of the scaled time differences, and selecting a histogram bin to correspond to the time offset between the first and second signatures.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A method to determine a time offset between a first media signature comprising a first sequence of first data pairs and a second media signature comprising a second sequence of second data pairs, the method comprising:
comparing, via a processor, ones of the first data pairs in the first sequence with ones of the second data pairs in the second sequence to determine original time differences between respective combinations of the ones of the first data pairs and the ones of the second data pairs;
scaling and truncating, via the processor, the original time differences to determine scaled time differences between respective combinations of the ones of the first data pairs and the ones of the second data pairs;
determining, via the processor, a histogram comprising bins representative of the scaled time differences, a first one of the bins of the histogram being representative of a first one of the scaled time differences, a value of the first one of the bins being determined to correspond to a count of the combinations of the ones of the first data pairs and the ones of the second data pairs having respective scaled time differences corresponding to the first one of the scaled time differences; and
selecting at least one bin of the histogram to correspond to the time offset between the first signature and the second signature.