Patent ID: 9712866
Date: 2017-07-18
CPC Classifications: H04N

Claim:
1. A method of operating a first set-top box (STB) to at least partly cancel a remotely-generated TV audio disturbance in a conferencing session, where (i) the first STB is participating in the conferencing session, (ii) as part of the conferencing session, the first STB receives an incoming conferencing audio signal from a remote STB, (iii) the remote STB exports a remote TV signal to a remote TV set that is local to the remote STB but remote to the first STB, (iv) a speaker of the remote TV set outputs remote soundwaves representing an audio track of the remote TV signal and (v) the remote soundwaves are received by a microphone that is local to the remote STB, thereby causing the incoming conferencing audio signal to contain the remotely-generated TV audio disturbance, the method of operating the first STB comprising: a. receiving, by the first STB and from the remote STB, the incoming conferencing audio signal which contains the remotely-generated TV audio disturbance; b. identifying, by the first STB, a remote TV channel that the remote TV set is playing; c. obtaining, by the first STB, digital data corresponding to content of the identified remote TV channel; d. based on the digital data, generating, by the first STB, a reference audio signal corresponding to an audio track of the identified remote TV channel; e. processing, by the first STB, the incoming conferencing audio signal, the processing being performed: f. outputting, by the first STB, the filtered conferencing audio signal, so as to be played locally to the first STB.