Abstract: An apparatus for determining information in order to temporally align first and second information signals, each including one or several information values for successive sampling times, the apparatus including a characteristic extractor for extracting a characteristic per sampling time or per subsequence of sampling times from the first information signal within a first search pattern to obtain a first characteristic curve, and for extracting the characteristic per sampling time or per subsequence of sampling times from the second information signal within a second search pattern to obtain a second characteristic curve and a determiner for determining the information for temporal alignment based on similarities between the first and second characteristic curves of the characteristic by means of a first search for a search pattern from one of the first and second characteristic curves of the characteristic within the other of the first and second characteristic curves of the characteristic.