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US 7,984,462 B2Granted
Methods and apparatus to detect a blank frame in a digital video broadcast signal
AssigneeThe Nielsen Company (US), LLC
InventorKevin K. Deng
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and apparatus to detect blank images in a digital video broadcast signal are disclosed. An example method of detecting a blank image includes analyzing DC values of luminance blocks associated with a frame to determine a number of the luminance blocks having substantially the same DC value; and identifying the frame as a blank image if the number exceeds a predetermined threshold.
Claims16
A method of detecting a blank image comprising:
- analyzing a compressed frame of a tuned digital broadcast signal to determine if the frame is a blank candidate by determining if the compressed frame has a data size less than a first threshold and determining if more than a second threshold number of areas of the compressed frame includes substantially a same number of at least one of bits or bytes of data, wherein analyzing the compressed frame is performed without extracting DC values from the compressed frame;
- and
- when the compressed frame is the blank candidate, extracting and analyzing at least some of the DC values from the compressed frame to determine if the blank candidate is a blank image by comparing a number of the DC values having substantially a same value to a third threshold.
An apparatus to detect a blank image comprising:
- a blank frame candidate identifier to analyze a compressed frame of a tuned digital broadcast signal to determine if the frame is a blank candidate without extracting DC values from the compressed frame, the blank frame candidate identifier to analyze the compressed frame by determining if the compressed frame has a data size less than a first threshold and determining if more than a second threshold number of areas of the compressed frame includes substantially a same number of at least one of bits or bytes of data;
- and
- a blank frame tester to extract and analyze at least some of the DC values from the compressed frame to determine if the blank candidate is a blank image, the blank frame tester to determine if the blank frame candidate is a blank image by comparing a number of DC values having substantially a same value to a second threshold.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.