Synchronization and automation in an itv environment

Abstract From the Canadian patent

A synchronization mechanism embeds synchronization triggers into a television signal or stream at regular intervals. The triggers include an accurate representation of the time in which the triggers were embedded. A receiving device decodes the triggers and synchronizes its internal timer based on the triggers. In this regard, the receiving device obtains a reference time from the internal timer and computes an offset between the reference time and the trigger time. The computed offset is then applied to the reference time. With the receipt of each new trigger, the application compares the trigger time to a new reference time with the most recently computed offset value applied. If …