Using ocr to detect currently playing television programs

Abstract

Features of various implementations are used to enable determining what a particular consumer is watching on television in order to deliver matched functionality, content and/or services, as a part of an interactive television suite of technologies. In some implementations, the process of determining what a particular consumer is watching is enabled so that communication between the primary set-top box and a supplemental set-top box and/or television integrated device is reduced, thereby avoiding the need for one or more provider specific APIs. For example, one aspect of the disclosure is a computer-implemented method of identifying a media program by capturing display data from the media program, and extracting text from the display data in response to determining that the display data includes the text overlay, wherein the extracted text is associated with the media program.