h a l f b a k e r yLike you could do any better.
add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, best, random
news, help, about, links, report a problem
browse anonymously,
or get an account
and write.
register,
|
|
|
I have a wonderful little device made by a company called Humax - it's a TV receiver with a hard drive, and it lets me record my favourite shows and watch them when I want to.
It has this really useful button you can use during playback - it skips forward 30 seconds, so when you hit an ad break, you
just press the button to skip commercials. However you usually skip too far, so you have to skip back, so it's less than perfect - you still get the 'ad-break', just truncated - the flow is still broken.
I noticed two things. One - most channels these days have a channel logo in the top left corner of the screen - it's a static image that's alpha-blended with the underlying video. Two - the logo is on screen during the programme, but is removed during commercial breaks.
So I got to thinking. If the Humax (or equivalent device) could detect the presence or absence of the channel logo, it could identify the start and end of each ad break, and jump over it automagically. No more ad-breaks !
Detecting the logo shouldn't be too hard. All one would have to do is detect a set of pixels that remained constant from one frame to the next, over some threshold time. To deal with alpha-blended logos (typically a constant-alpha-blend to white) you could look for a constant edge in the saturation profile of the image. Or something. The precise choice of algorithm is left as an exercise to the reader ;-)
A successful logo-detection algorithm would presumably set off a sort of 'arms race', with TV channels inventing animated logos to outwit the detection.
[link]
|
| |
Our Humax, if left recording a freeview channel, and while viewing the Pace DVB-T box tuned to a different freeview channel, will cut itself back into view via the SCART whenever there's an ad break. It's very annoying, requiring a further press of the source button on the Humax remote to get the Pace to show again. This would imply that the Humax knows damn well whether there's ads or programme material on at any given time. |
|
| |
Over here in the U.S. of A. we have what's called a TiVo. And Our channel logos are in the lower right corner of the screen, and most of them are "transparent", and some of them are animated part of the time. |
|
| |
bumhat is the best of all the nicknames. |
|
| |
If it worked, the advertizers would have networks add the logos. How about just checking volume level. Here in USA, they blare the commercials. |
|
| |
That's called sound compression. |
|
| |
//a lot of advertisers today use sound compression techniques, a maximum level of 4 on the PPM (Peak Program Meter) is imposed on ads with a highly compressed soundtrack. Compressing an ad’s soundtrack is akin to levelling out the ‘peaks and troughs’ of the sound waves so that the peak levels of the compressed version would be the same as those of the “natural” version but the ‘troughs’ are raised. |
|
| |
The result is an ad that sounds subjectively louder. They may also be broadcast in a quiet section of the program, to increase the impression of loudness.// |
|
| |
I once had the same idea, but the algorithm would be used to remove the logo, so you can pirate your favorite tv programs sans that annoying logo to all your friends. |
|
| |
[TheNakedApiarist] why thank you ! |
|
| |
It should be possible to detect animated transparent logos - by measuring statistical properties of a region of the image. |
|
| |
For example, if you have a rotating logo, the average saturation of the pixels in the square around the logo will be higher (and more stable) than the rest of the image. |
|
| |