ANALYSING VIDEO MATERIAL

• US 20100039564A1
• Filed: 02/07/2008
• Published: 02/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/13/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Inventors: Ducatel, Gery M., Cui, Zhan, Azarmi, Nader
• Granted Patent: US 8,433,566 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/700
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7844 using original textual content or text extracted from visual content or transcript of audio data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/785 using colour or luminescence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/28 by using information signals recorded by the same method as the main recording G11B27/22 takes precedence

Abstract

Video material is dividing into temporal segments. Each segment is examined to determine whether the soundtrack of the segment contains speech sufficient for analysis and if so, metadata are generated based on analysis of the speech. If not, the segment is analysed by comparing frames thereof with those of stored segments that already have metadata assigned to them. One then assigns to the segment under consideration stored metadata associated with one or more stored segments that are similar.

Claims

1. A method of processing video material, comprising dividing the material into temporal portions and for each temporal portion:

(i) determining whether the soundtrack of the portion contains speech sufficient for analysis;

(ii) if it has, generating metadata for that portion based on analysis of the speech;

(iii) if it has not, analysing the portion by comparing frames thereof with stored frames, and assigning to the portion stored metadata associated with one or more stored frames that are similar.

2. A method according to claim 1 in which the step of comparing frames comprises extracting key frames from the portion under consideration and comparing the key frames with key frames of the stored portions.

3. A method according to claim 2 in which a portion under consideration is deemed similar to a stored portion if the proportion of frames in the portion under consideration that meet a criterion of similarity with frames of the stored portion exceeds a threshold.

4. A method according to claim 1, further comprising, in the event that the comparison step identifies a plurality of stored portions, retrieving stored metadata associated with each portion identified and combining said metadata, including eliminating duplicate or similar items, to produce a single set of metadata for the portion under consideration.