Patent ID: 8370382

Claim:
A method for facilitating the search of video content, comprising the steps of: submitting a searching video clip of digitized video image frame data for a time duration; extracting a fingerprint from the searching video clip; selecting at least one database entry matching a specific time of searching video clip from a fingerprint archive database storing fingerprint data extracted from distributed video content; delivering the at least one database entry matching the specific time of searching video clip to a search module; reconstructing a data segment in the at least one database entry into continuous fingerprint streams by the search module, wherein entries in the at least one database entry from the same location and channel are grouped together, and fingerprint data sections are stripped from the entries and concatenated according to segment ID and time-stamps contained within each of the entries; searching for a match with the fingerprint from the continuous fingerprint streams to generate a matching result; wherein a stream in said fingerprint streams is advanced relative to said fingerprint corresponding to one video frame at a time and the fingerprint matching operation is repeated, if the match is not found; wherein if a match is found, additional information associated with the entries is combined with information on the searching video clip to generate a single report message; and combining the matching result with additional information obtained from the fingerprint archive database comprising time, location, and channel of distribution information to form a search report.