A plastic item, such as a beverage bottle, conveys two distinct digital watermarks, encoded using two distinct signaling protocols. A first, printed label watermark conveys a retailing payload, including a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) used by a point-of-sale scanner in a retail store to identify and price the item when presented for checkout. A second, plastic texture watermark conveys a recycling payload, including data identifying the composition of the plastic. The use of two different signaling protocols assures that a point-of-sale scanner will not spend its limited time and computational resources working to decode the recycling watermark, which lacks the data needed for retail checkout. In some embodiments, a recycling apparatus makes advantageous use of both types of watermarks to identify the plastic composition of the item (e.g., relating GTIN to plastic type using an associated database), thereby increasing the fraction of items that are correctly identified for sorting and recycling. A great number of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to extend a time range supported by a watermark are disclosed. Example watermark encoding apparatus disclosed herein determine which one of a plurality of timestamp cycles is to be represented by a timestamp of a watermark, the timestamp including a set of timestamp symbols, a first subset of data symbols and a second subset of data symbols. Disclosed example apparatus also modify the first subset of data symbols of the watermark based on a further timestamp symbol not included in the set of timestamp symbols of the timestamp, but not modify the second subset of data symbols based on the further timestamp symbol, the further timestamp symbol to identify the one of the plurality of timestamp cycles to be represented by the timestamp of the watermark. Disclosed example apparatus further embed the watermark in a piece of media.

A method and apparatus for publishing multimedia data, and a device and a medium are provided. The method includes: acquiring multimedia data to be published; in response to acquiring a multimedia synchronous publishing request, sending the multimedia synchronous publishing request to a second multimedia platform indicated by the multimedia synchronous publishing request, such that the second multimedia platform publishes synchronous multimedia data that is generated on the basis of the multimedia data to be published, wherein the synchronous multimedia data includes identification information of a first multimedia platform. Thus, a user can synchronously publish multimedia data at another multimedia platform by means of an original multimedia platform, and add an identifier of the original multimedia platform to the multimedia data that is published at the other multimedia platform, so as to enable a user at the other multimedia platform to be aware of the original multimedia platform.

Systems and methods for updating advertisements embedded in a media asset scheduled for download at a future time. The media guidance application may receive a request from a user to download a media asset at a future time, where the media asset includes a plurality of embedded advertisements. The media guidance application may determine whether to update an embedded advertisement in the plurality of embedded advertisements. After determining to update the embedded advertisement, the media guidance application may replace the embedded advertisement with an updated advertisement in the media asset.

A method and system for controlling implementation of dynamic content modification. The disclosure provides for using at least one steganographically-encoded timestamp in a media stream transmitted to a media client as a basis to determine a transmission delay for media-stream transmission to the media client, and for providing the determined transmission delay as a basis to facilitate control over whether to have the media client implement dynamic content modification. In addition, the disclosure provides for receiving respectively from each of various media clients a report indicating transmission delay determined for the media client based on such steganographically-encoded timestamp data, and using the transmission delays for the media clients to establish a dynamic-content-modification footprint that could be used to control whether, where, and to what extent dynamic content modification will be applied.

A main stream contains successive content elements of video and/or audio information that encode video and/or audio information at a first data rate. A computation circuit (144) computes main fingerprints from the successive content elements. A reference stream is received having a second data rate lower than the first data rate. The reference stream defines a sequence of the reference fingerprints. A comparator unit (144) compares the main fingerprints with the reference fingerprints. The main stream is monitored for the presence of inserted content elements between original content elements, where the original content elements have main fingerprints that match successive reference fingerprints and the inserted content elements have main fingerprints that do not match reference fingerprints. Rendering of inserted content elements to be skipped. In an embodiment when more than one content element matches only one is rendered. In another embodiment matching is used to control zapping to or from the main stream. In another embodiment matching is used to control linking of separately received mark-up information such as subtitles to points in the main stream.

A system that handles delivery of service(s) through a client device, includes an interactive service provider, a video service provider, and a client device. The interactive service provider inserts at least one of digital watermarks and digital fingerprints in non-programming media content. The video service provider transmits a media stream of the media content that includes programming media content and the non-programming media content. The client device detects at least one of the inserted digital watermarks and the digital fingerprints in the playback duration of the media content and renders overlay graphics on the media content. The client device activates at least one of input devices paired with the client device and the rendered overlay graphics. The client device further receives trigger responses over activated overlay graphics and displays an interactive view to enable delivery of service(s) in response to the trigger responses.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed for watermark outage detection. Example methods include evaluating an onset time and duration of a detected watermark outage based on a model of expected watermark outages to determine whether the detected watermark outage corresponds to at least one of the expected watermark outages represented in the model. Example methods further include generating an alert in response to determining the detected watermark outage does not correspond to at least one of the expected watermark outages included in the model, and suppressing the alert in response to determining the detected watermark outage corresponds to the at least one of the expected watermark outages represented in the model.

Systems and methods for encoding multiple video streams with digital watermarking for adaptive bitrate streaming in accordance with embodiments of the invention are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method for preprocessing multimedia content into streams with watermark information includes receiving a source content media stream, generating at least two variant preprocessed streams for each received source content media stream, where each variant preprocessed stream includes different watermark information in the same locations as the other variant preprocessed streams and where marked locations are spaced apart at least a distance equal to a predetermined maximum segment size, generating a set of embed location information describing marked locations in the variant preprocessed streams, generating at least one variant output stream from each variant preprocessed stream using video compression, partitioning each variant output stream into a set of segments, where each segment is no longer than the predetermined maximum segment size and contains at most one copy of the watermark information, generating a set of segment boundary information describing the boundaries of segments within the variant output streams and the boundaries are the same between variant output streams, and generating a segment selection list using the set of embed location information and the set of segment boundary information, where the segment selection list includes only one variant segment for each segment according to a watermark sequence and the digits of the watermark sequence correspond to the watermark information applied to each variant preprocessed stream.

In various embodiments, a device receives a video stream. One or more frames of the video stream include embedded metadata that is embedded directly into the one or more frames. The device extracts the embedded metadata from the one or more frames. The device makes an authentication determination regarding the video stream, based on whether the embedded metadata includes a digital signature associated with a sender of the video stream. The device controls, based on the authentication determination, presentation of the video stream to a recipient user.