Video cataloger system with extensibility

• US 6,463,444 B1
• Filed: 08/14/1998
• Issued: 10/08/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 08/14/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Micro Focus LLC (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Virage, Inc. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Hampapur, Arun, Fuller, Charles, Horowitz, Bradley, Jain, Ramesh, Portuesi, Michael J., Gupta, Amarnath, Shu, Chiao-fe, Humphrey, Richard D., Gorkani, Mojgan Monika, Bach, Jeffrey
• Primary Examiner(s): CHOULES, JACK M
• Application Number:
  US09/134,498
• Time in Patent Office: 1,516 Days
• Field of Search: 707/102, 707/103, 707/104.1, 709/328, 345/326, 345/700, 345/716, 345/722, 345/723
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/745 the internal structure of a single video sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/78 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7834 using audio features
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7844 using original textual content or text extracted from visual content or transcript of audio data
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

One aspect of the invention is directed to a system and method for video cataloging. The video is cataloged according to predefined or user definable metadata. The metadata is used to index and then retrieve encoded video. Video feature extractors produce metadata tracks from the video information, and each metadata track indexes the stored video information. A feature extractor registration interface registers the video feature extractors, providing for registration with the video engine of new video feature extractors with new metadata tracks.

Claims

1. An extensible video engine receiving video information, comprising:

a video capture service to store the video information;

a plurality of video feature extractors to produce metadata tracks from the video information, wherein each metadata track indexes the stored video information; and

a feature extractor registration interface to register the video feature extractors, wherein a new video feature extractor with a new metadata track can be registered with the engine.

2. The video engine of claim 1, wherein the video information includes at least one of:

video, audio, time codes and text.

3. The video engine of claim 1, wherein the plurality of feature extractors produces metadata tracks including at least one of:

keyframe, close caption text, audio analysis, speech-to-text and speaker identification.

4. The video engine of claim 1, additionally comprising an output filter manager to store the metadata track in an output format.

5. The video engine of claim 4, wherein the output format can be one of:

VDF, HTML, XML and SMIL.

6. The video engine of claim 4, additionally comprising an output filter registration interface to register a new output filter to convert the metadata to a new output format.

7. The video engine of claim 1, additionally comprising an event manager to handle any one of a plurality of events, and an event registration interface to register a new event and an associated event handler with the event manager.

8. The video engine of claim 1, additionally comprising a metadata track index manager to selectively apply the feature extractors to the video information, and a metadata track registration interface to register a new metadata track with the metadata track index manager.

9. The video engine of claim 1, wherein the video information is received from a live satellite feed.

10. The video engine of claim 1, wherein the video information is received from a digital source.

11. A method of extending a video engine receiving video information, comprising:

providing a plurality of built-in metadata tracks;

providing a plurality of built-in video feature extractor, each built-in feature extractor being associated with one of the built-in metadata tracks; and

registering a new metadata track and an associated new feature extractor with the video engine.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the built-in metadata tracks includes at least one of:

keyframe, close caption text, audio analysis, speech-to-text and speaker identification.

13. The method of claim 11, additionally comprising providing a plurality of built-in output filters to convert the metadata tracks into an output format, and registering a new output filter to convert the metadata tracks into a new output format with the video engine.

14. The method of claim 11, additionally comprising registering an event and an associated event handler with the video engine.

15. The method of claim 11, additionally comprising capturing user information to generate a clip metadata track based on the video information.

16. The method of claim 11, additionally comprising indexing each metadata track to the received video information.

17. The method of claim 11, additionally comprising displaying selected ones of the metadata tracks.

18. The method of claim 11, additionally comprising capturing the video information.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the video information includes video, audio, time codes and text.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the capturing is from a digital source.