A video sign based advertising method involves providing a video display that is adapted to display images as an arrangement of pixels; sending video signals representing an advertisement to the video display; capturing an image of a sample of less than all of the pixels of the video display; determining if the captured sample matches a bitmap of the image sample of the image that is being sent to the display; logging play-out of the advertisement if a match is detected; and initiating an error condition action if a match is not detected. This abstract is not to be considered limiting, since other embodiments may deviate from the features described in this abstract.