System and method for in-band A/V timing measurement of serial digital video signals

A system for characterizing a relative offset in time between audio and video signals, the system comprising:

• a frame storage configured to:
• receive, from a television origination facility, a sequence of frames including video and audio signals as well as in-band characterization data associated with each scanline of video data and audio data for each frame in the sequence of frames;
• and
• store at least a portion of the frames in the sequence of frames;
• a checksum receiver coupled to the frame storage and configured to:
• extract the in-band characterization data from the sequence of frames;
• capture characterization data for each scanline of video data and audio data for each frame in the sequence of frames based on the video and audio signals;
• and
• compare the captured characterization data for each scanline of video data and audio data for each frame with the extracted in-band characterization data to determine the relative offset in time between the audio and video signals for the sequence of frames.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause a computer system to characterize a relative offset in time between audio and video signals, by performing the steps of:

• receiving, from a television origination facility, a sequence of frames including video and audio signals as well as in-band characterization data associated with each scanline of video data and audio data for each frame in the sequence of frames that is transmitted using in-band signals;
• extracting the characterization data from the sequence of frames;
• capturing characterization data for each scanline of video data and audio data for each frame in the sequence of frames based on the video and audio signals to produce captured characterization data;
• and
• comparing the captured characterization data for each scanline of video data and audio data for each frame with the extracted characterization data to determine the relative offset in time between the audio and video signals for the sequence of frames.