Broadcast information classification system and method

Abstract

Method and apparatus for classifying broadcast information first receives the broadcast information and processes it to provide a plurality of a low bandwidth analyzed waveforms. The analyzed waveforms are used to generate a spectragram which is then compared with a plurality of reference spectragrams stored in a first stage reference library. The first stage reference spectragrams are then queued in order of their similarity to the generated spectragram. Next, a plurality of second stage reference patterns, which correspond to the first stage reference spectragrams, are correlated with one of the analyzed waveforms in the queueing order established previously. A correlation value is provided for each second stage reference pattern stored in the second stage reference library. When it is determined that a correlation value exceeds the threshold value, a recognition is declared and the broadcast information is classified as similar to the second stage reference pattern whose correlation value exceeds the threshold. The analyzed waveform used in the second stage classification may be time warped to account for speed fluctuations in the broadcast information.