Apparatus for retrieving and administrating moving pictures and related network system

• US 6,370,316 B1
• Filed: 03/10/2000
• Issued: 04/09/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Sovereign Peak Ventures, LLC (Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Tanaka, Akiyoshi, Yamada, Shin
• Primary Examiner(s): Chevalier, Robert
• Application Number:
  US09/522,904
• Time in Patent Office: 760 Days
• Field of Search: H04/N.5783, H04/N.5782, 386/46, 386/52, 386/55, 386/57, 386/4, 386/1, 386/60, 386/62, 386/65, 386/69, 386/95, 386/68, 386/124, 360/13
• US Class Current: 386/230
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/90 Tape-like record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/105 of operating discs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/107 of operating tapes
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/11 by using information not detectable on the record carrier
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/28 by using information signals recorded by the same method as the main recording G11B27/22 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/34 Indicating arrangements indicating means incorporated in magazine or cassette G11B23/046 and G11B23/0875; indicating measured values in general G01D
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4147 PVR [Personal Video Recorder] H04N5/76 takes precedence ; arrangements for broadcast with accumulation-type receivers H04H20/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42661 for reading from or writing on a magnetic storage medium, e.g. hard disk drive
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73

Abstract

Video data is segmented into a plurality of scenes. For each of the segmented scenes, an index is produced as an assembly of section information required in a playback of each scene, scene number, and representative frame of scene. A title is added to each index according to search purpose. In a retrieving operation, a desired index is easily found according to the title. The scenes of the retrieved index are successively played back in order of scene number.

Claims

1. A moving picture administrating apparatus, comprising:

a video data storing means for storing video data;

a scene producing means for segmenting said video data stored in said video data storing means into a plurality of segmented scenes, giving a scene number to each of said segmented scenes, and selecting a representative frame of scene;

an index storing means for storing at least one index being edited as an assembly of section information required in a playback of each scene, said scene number, and said representative frame of scene which are produced by said scene producing means;

an index editing means for editing said index stored in said index storing means to produce a new index;

a title adding means for adding a title to each index stored in said index storing means;

a playback means for successively playing scenes in order of the scene number so that the playback starts with one of scenes of said index;

a caption frame detecting means for retrieving said video data stored in said video data storing means to detect a caption frame containing a character string;

a character recognizing means for recognizing a character string contained in each caption frame, and

a character string display means for displaying a list of caption character strings recognized by said character recognizing means.

2. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 1, wherein:

an index producing client acts as said scene producing means, said index editing means, and said title adding means;

a server act s as said video data storing means and said index storing means;

at least one retrieving client acts as said playback means; and

said server, said index producing client, and said at least one retrieving client are connected via a network.

3. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 1, further comprising:

a retrieving means for performing an index search by designating retrieval conditions relevant to a search purpose; and

wherein said playback means operates for successively playing scenes in order of the scene number so that the playback starts with one of scenes of a retrieved index corresponding to said retrieval conditions.

4. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 1, wherein said index storing means comprises at least one file for storing indices, and further including a database means for administrating and retrieving file names of said indices and the titles assigned to respective indices.

5. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 1, further comprising a keyword assigning means for giving keywords to respective indices stored in said index storing means.

6. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 5, wherein said index storing means comprises at least one file for storing the indices, and further including a database means for administrating and retrieving file names of said indices and the keywords assigned to the indices.

7. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 3, further comprising a title display means for displaying the titles of said indices stored in said index storing means.

8. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 7, wherein the titles displayed by said title display means satisfy said retrieval conditions.

9. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 1, wherein the editing performed by said index editing means includes at least one operation selected from the group consisting of change of scene number, division of scene, joining of scenes, deletion of scene, and change of the representative frame of scene.

10. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 1, further comprising a title selecting means for selecting one of titles given by said title adding means, and an index display means for displaying representative frames which are selected beforehand as corresponding to an index having the title selected by said title selecting means.

11. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 1, further comprises a character string display means for collecting character strings to be displayed on a screen by retrieving said video data stored in said video data storing means and for displaying a list of obtained character strings.

12. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 1, wherein said index storing means stores arecognition result produced by sai chacter recognizing means.

13. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 1, further comprising keyword adding means for giving keywords to the indices stored in said index storing means based on a recognition result produced by said character recognizing means.

14. The moving picture administrating apparatus in accordance with claim 1, further comprising an editor for editing a title based on a recognition result produced by said character recognizing means.

15. A moving picture administrating apparatus, comprising:

a video data storing means for storing video data;

a scene producing means for segmenting said video data stored in said video data storing means into a plurality of segmented scenes, giving a scene number to each of said segmented scenes, and selecting a representative frame of scene;

an index storing means for storing at least one index being edited as an assembly of section information required in a playback of each scene, said scene number, and said representative frame of scene which are produced by said scene producing means;

an index editing means for editing said index stored in said index storing means to produce a new index;

a title adding means for adding a title to each index stored in said index storing means;

a playback means for successively playing scenes in order of the scene number so that the playback starts with one of scenes of said index;

a caption frame detecting means for retrieving said video data stored in said video data storing means to detect a caption frame containing a character string;

a character recognizing means for recognizing a character string contained in each caption frame,

a character string display means for displaying a list of caption character strings recognized by said character recognizing means; and

means enabling a user to edit a listed caption character string by using an editor, thereby enabling the user to provide a title to the index by modifying an arbitrary caption character string selected from said list of caption character strings.