System and method for audio hot spotting

• US 20060217966A1
• Filed: 03/24/2005
• Published: 09/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mitre Corporation
• Original Assignee: Mitre Corporation
• Inventors: Hu, Qian, Fish, Randall K., Boykin, Stanley M., Goodman, Fred J., Greiff, Warren R.
• Granted Patent: US 7,617,188 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/200
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/683 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/685 using automatically derived transcript of audio data, e.g. lyrics speech recognition G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 25/00 Speech or voice analysis techniques not restricted to a single one of groups G10L15/00 - G10L21/00 muting semiconductor-based amplifiers when some special characteristics of a signal are sensed by a speech detector, e.g. sensing when no signal is present, H03G3/34
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/913 Multimedia
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

Audio hot spotting is accomplished by specifying query criterion to include a non-lexical audio cue. The non-lexical audio cue can be, e.g., speech rate, laughter, applause, vocal effort, speaker change or any combination thereof. The query criterion is retrieved from an audio portion of a file. A segment of the file containing the query criterion can be provided to a user. The duration of the provided segment can be specified by the user along with the files to be searched. A list of detections of the query criterion within the file can also be provided to the user. Searches can be refined by the query criterion additionally including a lexical audio-cue. A keyword index of topic terms contained in the file can also be provided to the user.

Claims

1. A method of audio hot spotting comprising:

specifying a non-lexical audio cue;

detecting the non-lexical audio cue within an audio portion of a file; and

providing, to a user, a segment of the file containing the non-lexical audio cue.

2. A method of audio hot spotting comprising:

specifying a query criterion that comprises a non-lexical audio cue;

detecting the query criterion within an audio portion of a file; and

providing, to a user, a segment of the file containing the query criterion.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the non-lexical audio cue is any of speech rate, laughter, applause, vocal effort and speaker change.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the specifying step further comprises specifying a duration of the segment.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising providing, to the user, a list of detections of the query criterion within the file.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the detecting step further comprises a cross-file detection of the query criterion.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the query criterion further comprises a lexical audio cue.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the lexical audio cue is any of a user-specified phoneme string, a user-specified keyword and a user-specified keyphrase.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising combining the non-lexical audio cue and the lexical audio cue using Boolean operators.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the detecting step further comprises detecting a phonetically expanded lexical audio cue.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the detecting step further comprises detecting a semantically expanded lexical audio cue.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the detecting step further comprises detecting a morphologically expanded lexical audio cue.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein the detecting step further comprises detecting a translingually expanded lexical audio cue.

14. The method of claim 2, wherein the file is an audio file.

15. The method of claim 2, wherein the file is a video file.

16. The method of claim 2, wherein the file is a multimedia file.

17. The method of claim 2, wherein the file is any of WAV, AVI, MPEG, MPA, MP3 and MP4 file.

18. The method of claim 2, further comprising providing the user with a list of topic terms detected in the audio portion of the file.

19. An audio hot spotting system comprising:

a user interface for specifying a query criterion comprising a non-lexical audio cue; and

an audio feature extractor that detects the query criterion within an audio portion of a file and provides, to a user, a segment of the file containing the query criterion.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the non-lexical audio cue is any of speech rate, laughter, applause, vocal effort and speaker change.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein the query criterion further comprises a segment duration.

22. The system of claim 19, wherein the audio feature extractor further provides, to the user, a list of detections of the query criterion within the file.

23. The system of claim 19, wherein the audio feature extractor further provides a cross-file detection of the query criterion.

24. The method of claim 19, wherein the query criterion further comprises a lexical audio cue.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the lexical audio cue is any of a user-specified phoneme string, a user-specified keyword and a user-specified keyphrase.

26. The system of claim 24, wherein the query criterion further comprises a combination of the non-lexical audio cue and the lexical audio cue using Boolean operators.

27. The system of claim 24, wherein the lexical audio cue is phonetically expanded.

28. The system of claim 24, wherein the lexical audio cue is semantically expanded.

29. The system of claim 24, wherein the lexical audio cue is morphologically expanded.

30. The system of claim 24, wherein the lexical audio cue is translingually expanded.

31. The system of claim 19, wherein the file is an audio file.

32. The system of claim 19, wherein the file is a video file.

33. The system of claim 19, wherein the file is a multimedia file.

34. The system of claim 19, wherein the file is any of WAV, AVI, MPEG, MPA, MP3 and MP4 file.

35. The system of claim 19, wherein the audio feature extractor further provides the user with a list of topic terms detected in the audio portion of the file.

36. An audio hot spotting system comprising:

user interface means for specifying a query criterion that comprises a non-lexical audio cue; and

audio feature extracting means for detecting the query criterion within the audio portion of a file and providing, to a user, a segment of the file containing the query criterion.

37. The system of claim 36, wherein the non-lexical audio cue is any of speech rate, laughter, applause, vocal effort and speaker change.

38. The system of claim 36, further comprising audio feature extracting means for providing, to the user, a list of detections of the query criterion within the file.

39. The system of claim 36, further comprising user interface means for specifying the query criterion to further comprise a lexical audio cue.

40. The system of claim 39, wherein the lexical audio cue is any of a user-specified phoneme, a user-specified keyword and a user-specified keyphrase.

41. A computer program product for audio hot spotting, the computer program product comprising a computer useable medium having computer program logic recorded thereon for controlling at least one processor, the computer program logic comprising:

computer program code means for specifying a query criterion that comprises a non-lexical audio cue;

computer program code means for detecting the query criterion within an audio portion of a file; and

computer program code means for providing, to a user, a segment of the file containing query criterion.