Image verification with tiered tolerance

1. A method for comparing a sample image to a reference image, said sample image and said reference image each having a plurality of pixels, each of said plurality of pixels having at least one color channel value associated therewith, said method comprising:

calculating a color channel difference between one or more of the color channel values of one or more of the pixels in the sample image and the corresponding color channel values for the corresponding pixels in the reference image;

comparing the calculated color channel difference to a predefined color channel tolerance;

statistically combining the calculated color channel differences;

comparing the statistically combined color channel differences to a predefined pixel tolerance;

defining a pixel status of each of the one or more of the pixels in the sample image as a function of comparing color channel differences to a tolerance and statistically combined color channel differences to a tolerance, said pixel status indicating whether the pixel in the sample image is different from the corresponding pixel in the reference image; and

defining an image status of the sample image as a function of calculating a percentage of the pixels with a pixel status indicating that the pixel in the sample image is different from the corresponding pixel in the reference image, said image status indicating the sample image is different from the reference image when the calculated percentage exceeds a pre-defined bitmap difference tolerance between the sample image and the reference image.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein statistically combining the calculated color channel differences comprises one or more of the following: determining an average for the calculated color channel differences, and determining a median for the calculated color channel differences.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the predefined color channel tolerance is associated with one or more of the color channel values.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein defining the pixel status comprises indicating whether each of the one or more pixels in the sample image differs from the corresponding pixel in the reference image.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sample image comprises a sample video frame.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the color channel values correspond to one or more of the following: red, green, blue, luminance, chrominance, color-red, and color-blue.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein one or more computer-readable media not including a signal have computer-executable instructions for performing the method of claim 1 .

8. A method of comparing video content, said method comprising:

defining one or more sampling parameters; wherein defining one or more sampling parameters comprises identifying a seed for a pseudo-random number generator;

receiving video content as input, wherein receiving the input video content comprises receiving a video clip with a corresponding text overlay;

sampling the received input video content based on the defined sampling parameters, wherein said sampling occurs at a timestamp generated by the pseudo-random generator using the seed;

sampling reference video content based on the defined sampling parameters, wherein said sampling occurs at the generated timestamp; and

determining whether the sampled input video content differs from the sampled reference video content within a tolerance,

wherein sampling the received input video content produces a plurality of sample images and sampling the reference video content produces a plurality of reference images each corresponding to one of the sampled images, wherein each of the sample images and the reference images comprise at least one pixel, and wherein the pixel comprises a plurality of color channel values, and further comprising:

calculating color channel differences between the color channel values of the pixel in the sample image and the color channel values of a corresponding pixel in the reference image;

comparing the calculated color channel difference to a predefined color channel tolerance;

statistically combining the calculated color channel differences for the pixel in the sample image; and

comparing the statistically combined color channel differences to a predefined pixel tolerance and defining a pixel status of the pixel in the sample image as a function of the calculated color channel differences and the statistically combined color channel differences.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein determining whether the sampled input video content differs from the sampled reference video content comprises determining whether the sampled input video content differs from the sampled reference video content as a function of a tolerance value.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein defining the one or more sampling parameters comprises defining a sampling range occurring at the beginning of the video clip.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein one or more tangible computer-readable media not including a signal have computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 8 .

12. One or more tangible computer-readable media not including a signal having computer-executable components stored thereon for comparing images generated by different video adapters, each of said images having a plurality of pixels associated therewith, said components comprising:

a sampler module for sampling test video content generated by the first video adapter based on sampling parameters to create a sample image, wherein the sampler module comprises a pseudo-random number generator, and wherein said sampling occurs at a timestamp generated by the pseudo-random number generator using a seed;

a pixel module for comparing characteristics of one or more of the pixels in the sample image with corresponding pixels in a reference image generated by a second video adapter, wherein the characteristics comprise color channel values;

a tolerance module for defining a pixel status for each of the pixels in the sample image based on:

comparing characteristics of one or more of the pixels in the sample image with corresponding pixels in the reference image and pre-defined difference tolerances associated therewith,

statistically combining the calculated characteristic differences, and

comparing the statistically characteristic differences to predefined pixel tolerances; and

a bitmap module for defining an image status for the sample image based on the pixel status defined by the tolerance module for each of the pixels in the sample image.

13. The computer-readable media of claim 12 , further comprising a sampler module for sampling reference video content based on sampling parameters to create the reference image.

14. The computer-readable media of claim 12 , wherein the color channel values correspond to one or more of the following: red, green, blue, luminance, chrominance, color-red, and color-blue.