1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the use of keyframes in videos to summarize content. More particularly, the present invention relates to enhancement of keyframe content.
2. Description of the Related Art
The increase in the digital encoded videos (such as DVD's) and the continued popularity of video tapes, both pre-recorded and user-made, have created several issues never contemplated with the broadcasting of programs.
Of concern to advertisers is the ability of viewers to by-pass advertisements on videos (both in digital and analog form). Early on, it became evident that when home users would record programs, sporting events, etc. they would fast forward through the commercials. In addition, many pre-recorded videos also can sometimes have five minutes or more of advertisements prior to presenting the desired program, event, etc. Purchasers and renters of videos often fast-forward or skip to the start of the desired program, and view the advertisements as a nuisance.
Of concern to home users is the vast increase in their video libraries of movies, interviews, television shows, concerts, sporting events, etc. User made recordings can result in a plethora of unrelated often unrelated items on a video. These unrelated items are sometimes the result of impulse recording where the user jumps up and put the closest available item in the recorder so as to “catch” all of what is being viewed. As many home-users opt to sacrifice some degree of quality to obtain, for example, up to six hours of recording time from a standard two hour VHS tape, the ability to find the desired portion of the tape is cumbersome.
Just as significant a problem to home users is the desire to view a select portion of program, show, sporting event, whether that item is pre-recorded on a videotape, DVD or user recorded medium. This problem will only increase as the storage capacity of video discs increases so that more and more data can be stored on a single disk.
In the prior art, representative frames of a scene, which are referred to as keyframes, have been used to create a visual summary, a visual index and/or a visual table of contents which may or may not also include audio and text. U.S. Pat. No. 6,137,544 to Dimitrova et al. discloses a system in which scene detection and frame filtering are used for a visual indexing system to reduce the duplication of keyframes that can be caused by, for example, changes in room lighting during a particular scene merely because a character turned on or off a lamp, or a photographer's flashbulb illuminates the subject momentarily.
In addition, there are now devices and systems, such as personal TV recorders and agent technologies, which operate (normally at the meta-data level) by using Electronic Programming Guides (EPGs) and storing user preferences. These devices have the ability to store hundreds of hours of video content, so as to facilitate the process of viewing the preferred programs. Thus, there is a need to improve the keyframes of the prior art.