Ad Insertion Monitoring & Verifying System - ACR100

Use of Fingerprint Technology

A video frame contains a large quantity of pixels. Direct pixel-by-pixel comparison between two video frames to determine if they are the same is computationally expensive. Fingerprints are often used to uniquely represent a frame or a picture with less data.

The ACR100 find video segments or Ad clips using content matching. It will first playback and generate fingerprints of original video clips. The computed fingerprints are saved in the database, along with the original video clip metadata. Video formats including MPEG-2, H.264 and H.265 videos are supported.

To find matching content in live input streams or recorded video files, the software will continuously decode input video streams or files, generate fingerprints of decoded frames and then compare them to saved fingerprints from original video clips to determine if they are the same video.

Monitor Ad insertion in Live Input Streams

The ACR100 can find matching video clips stored in its database on live input streams. The software can receive live input streams via IP or DVB-ASI interfaces. Multiple IP streaming formats are supported, including UDP, RTP, HTTP, HLS (HTTP Live Streaming). The input stream can be single program or multi program transport streams. On each input stream, multiple Ad clips can be monitored and detected simultaneously.

The system automatically records input streams and monitors the presence of Ad clips on the input streams. The recorded files have specific time length, such as an hour, and saved in a local hard drive. For multi-program TS, each program is recorded in separate files.

When a matching clip is found in an input stream, the system will record related information such as matching Ad clip name, location of the matching clip in the recorded file, matching segment length, detection time in the system database. The system provides functions for searching database and exporting data.

The recorded files are saved in the local hard drive for a number of days based on user configuration and can be played back for verification and auditing purpose. Since the software records the information where Ad clips are located in a file, it helps users to find the Ad clips more easily when they playback the file in later times.

Each monitoring system can monitor multiple input streams simultaneously. Since the application runs on standard Windows computers, different server hardware configuration can be selected based on the total number of programs to be monitored, which provides scalability and flexibility.

Find Ad Clips in Stream Recording

The software can also be used to search video clips in any recorded files of video transport streams, whether they are generated by the ACR100 itself or other stream recorders. The video clips may be advertisements or some small segments of video programs.

To find video clips in a large recording file, users can open the recorded file and select video clips to be searched from the fingerprint database. The ACR100 software will play the recorded file, decode each frame and compare the fingerprint of decoded frame to that of video clips. Similar to the live input, when a matching clip is found in the input file, the system will record related information such as matching video content name, matching segment length, detection time in the system database. An event that a video segment is detected can also be created and displayed in real-time to users.

Multiple recorded files can be processed in the same time for the same group of video clips in the batch processing mode.

File Edit and Playback

The software provides functions for playing back, cutting and merging recording files. The video can be played back in normal speed, fast forward or rewind and can be decoded frame by frame.

The ACR100 can be used for cutting a recording file into multiple smaller files and merging multiple files into a single file. The software provides precise marks for the locations of the cutting points based on a progress bar and thumbnails. A progress bar shows the relative time of the marks to the start of the file. When a user drags the pointer, video frames are decoded and displayed as thumbnails so a user can visually see the cutting location. Additionally, several controls are provided for moving the pointer position in more precise steps.

The software provides convenient ways for sharing recording files and edited video clips on social network or emailing them to co-workers or customers.

Remote User Interface

The Remote UI application can be used to view test results and control the monitoring system remotely. The Remote UI application can be installed on a different Widows PC connected to the monitoring system in the same LAN. The software is designed based the client-server architecture, even when the UI software module is not running, the monitoring service can run automatically based on preconfigured parameters 24 by 7.