Effectiveness analysis of audio watermark tags for IPTV second screen applications and synchronization

Recently, the industry and the research community have been exploring the use of more than one screen for the experience of interactivity with media content, primarily involving the TV. The techniques directly related with audio for second screen synchronization - the sound detection using the audio fingerprint technique - are well established. Experiments using audio watermark might reveal good solutions but are not fully explored in the literature. The aim of this paper is to evaluate and compare the transmission and receiving effectiveness of audio in the IPTV context. An analysis is carried out from laboratory trials using a second screen application with the function of detecting audio watermarks through different audio transmission and reception equipments. The results show that audio watermark can be transmitted over IPTV networks and also improve the interactive media usage scenarios.