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Audience measurement system and method
| Details |
Inventors: Lu, Daozheng; Shagrin, Ceril T.; Thomas, William L.; Lee, Morris; Bernard, Bruce; Zhang, Jia;
Assignee: A.C. Nielsen Company (Northbrook, IL)
Primary Examiner: Razavi; Michael T.
Assistant Examiner: Prikockis; Larry T.
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Marshall, O'Toole, Gerstein, Murray & Borum
In a passive identification apparatus for identifying a predetermined individual member of a television viewing audience in a monitored viewing area, a video image of a monitored viewing area is captured. A template matching score is provided for an object in the video image. A Eigenface recognition score is provided for an object in the video image. These scores may be provided by comparing objects in the video image to reference files. The template matching score and the Eigenface recognition score are fused to form a composite identification record from which a viewer may be identified. Body shape matching, viewer tracking, viewer sensing, and/or historical data may be used to assist in viewer identification. The reference files may be updated as recognition scores decline. |
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A monitored viewing area 10, which is commonly a room of a statistically selected dwelling unit or household, is shown in FIG.
1.
Within the monitored viewing area 10 may be entertainment equipment, such as a television set 12, which is equipped with a channel monitoring device 14 for the purposes of monitoring the on/off status and the tuning status of the television set 12 and of transmitting status data to a local measurement computer 16.
The local measurement computer 16 can, in turn, communicate to a "home unit" which collects data from all such local measurement computers in the house.
For example, a local measurement computer 16 may be devoted to each television set in the house and data from each such local measurement computer may be collected by a "home unit" for supply periodically to a remotely located central computer over such communication channels as the public telephone system.
A variety of methods that are known in the art of broadcast audience measurement may be used to determine when the monitored television equipment is in use and to determine the channel to which the television set 12 is tuned.
These methods include, inter alia, non-invasively detecting the local oscillator signal of a television tuner as taught by Fulmer et al in U.
S.
Pat.
No.
4,723,302.
Other examples of such monitoring devices are disclosed in the aforementioned U.
S.
Pat.
Nos.
3,651,471 and 4,943,963.
Once measured, the on/off status and the tuning status may be transferred to the local measurement computer 16 via a variety of physical links such as dedicated signal wiring or the household AC power wiring that serves the monitored viewing area 10.
A video equipment module 18 having a window 20 is placed so that the window 20 is directed at the monitored viewing area 10 in order to observe as many viewing positions therein as possible.
These viewing positions include, for example, a chair 21 and a sofa 22 on which persons 24 and 26 may be seated when watching the television set 12
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