OMNIBUS DEVELOP MEDIA FINGERPRINTING

THE US subsidiary of Loughborough based OmniBus Systems have announced the development of a new media "fingerprinting" technique.
The system makes possible the indexing of media assets within an organization to simplify the task of finding it or tracking its use. Television stations, advertising agencies, market researchers and photo libraries that use this system can easily monitor and verify the transmission of commercials, and identify the correct use of copyrighted media.
To accurately identify the media frames, the new system needs one second of materials. Each ‘fingerprint’ is captured by reference to the unique shape - or fingerprint - of the image it contains.
OmniBus’ media fingerprinting solution works by first indexing original media clips. Indexing is accomplished as clips are transmitted, published, placed on the Internet, or clips already in circulation can be retrospectively indexed. Once indexed, the system tracks any future usage of media by monitoring transmissions, publications or Internet placements, even if the quality of the original material has degraded.
OmniBus technical director, Ian Fletcher, said: "We believe media fingerprinting could be used as a complement to watermarking - a process by which material is electronically added to a video image or still to help identify it. The two technologies tackle a different set of problems."
The OmniBus media fingerprinting system will initially be available as a standalone product. Future integration with OmniBus’ asset management is planned.