Motion video signal processing for recording or reproducing – Local trick play processing – With randomly accessible medium
Reexamination Certificate
1994-10-24
2001-02-27
Garber, Wendy (Department: 2715)
Motion video signal processing for recording or reproducing
Local trick play processing
With randomly accessible medium
C386S349000, C345S215000, C345S215000, C345S418000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06195497
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an apparatus and a method for associatively retrieving videos and searching an arbitrary video.
Construction of data bases directed to video information such as motion pictures and videos, which have not been handled in the past, has been vigorously made in recent years with a higher operation speed and a greater capacity of computers. With such a technical background, practical utilization of retrieving technology of efficiently selecting a desired scene from among large quantities of videos so built up is now under way. An ordinary retrieving method for such a purpose in the field of the video data base is the one by which a user designates a characterizing feature of a desired scene or its keyword and a computer searches the scene having a coincident keyword. However, it is extremely difficult, not only for inexperienced users but also skilled users in retrieval, to precisely designate the characterizing feature of a given scene, and a desired retrieving result cannot be obtained in most cases.
Books as classical information have a table of contents and an index as auxiliary information for retrieval. The table of contents is information in which keywords symbolizing portions of texts are listed in the sequence of progress in the texts. The index is information which lists important keywords in the texts in the order which is easy to find out, such as in the order of alphabet. The greatest feature common to them is that such keywords are collectively illustrated as a list. They always exist at the beginning and the end of the book, and require no trouble for searching them. A reader can find out one paragraph in the text by looking up the table of contents and the index without considering the keyword himself. The reader can also grasp the outline of the text by referring to the table of contents and can judge within a short time whether or not the book is worth reading.
Retrieval using the table of contents and the index involves the problem that a suitable portion cannot be found out if the number of keywords listed is too large, and, on the other hand, the keywords do not exist from the beginning if the number of keywords is too small. This problem can be solved by conjointly using hypertext or full text retrieval. In other words, the number of items of the table of contents and the index is first limited to a certain extent and is represented to the reader. The reader refers to the text by using temporarily the second best keyword which might be related with an object portion and then searches a keyword having a direct relation with the desired portion in the text. If such a keyword is found out, the object can be accomplished by referring to the desired portion by using the mechanism of the hypertext. This is the technique which is typically used in retrieval of an on-line manual. Though the keywords must be registered in advance in the hypertext, the same procedure can be executed for unregistered keywords when full text retrieval is adopted. In this way, the range of utilization of the table of contents and the index can be expanded depending on the mechanism for associatively tracing the keyword and in many cases, the reader can search the desired portion by merely selecting the keywords which appear in front of his eyes (hereinafter referred to as “associated retrieval”).
Such a mechanism is believed to be effective for video retrieval also. In the videos, various matters appearing in the video such as persons, materials, etc, can be used in a manner corresponding to the keywords described above. An essential technique for accomplishing associated retrieval using the matter described above, such as a system of looking up associated scenes and information from the matters appearing on a display screen of videos, is described in JP-A-3-52070 entitled “Associated Information Reference System of Animations”. According to this system, means for storing a video period in which each matter in a video appear and the position there of and means for combining associated information corresponding to the former are provided, a jump to an associated scene can be easily made and associated information can be easily called out by pointing one point on the screen in which each matter is displayed. Means for saving the trouble of establishing correspondence between each matter and its associated information by using video processing is described in JP-A-5-204990 filed by the inventors of the present invention.
The prior art technologies described above provide primarily means for establishing correspondence between each matter and its associated information but do not sufficiently examine the construction of an entire retrieving system and simple use of the system by the user. They also involve the problem that only that matter for which correspondence to the associated information has been already established can be associatively traced.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide an interface which enables a user to associatively trace his or her memory and to find a desired scene by merely selecting limited information submitted by a computer during video retrieval.
It is the second object of the present invention to provide means capable of associatively tracing matter for which correspondence has not been made in advance.
The present invention includes a video display region for displaying an arbitrary video on a screen, an operation panel region for controlling a playback condition of the video, a display region for displaying index information corresponding to the table of contents and the index of the video, means for detecting which of these display regions is pointed and means for determining the condition of the video to be played next from this point information and description information of videos built up separately. Further, means for grasping a matter in the display and its position and displaying, in superposition, the associated information of the matter, and associated information registration changing means are provided. There is further provided means for registering and managing information necessary for these processings described above.
Further, there are disposed means for designating a specific matter appearing in a scene during the display, means for extracting a characterizing quantity of the matter, means for searching another video scene having a characterizing quantity coincident with the characterizing quantity described above, and means for immediately jumping to the video scene thus searched.
According to the present invention, an object scene can be reached by sequentially tracing any matters having association with a desired scene even though information of the matter having a direct relation with the desired scene does not exist in index information of the video when the desired scene is searched. Since index display and associated retrieval are thus combined organically, the range of utilization of the index can be drastically expanded and, in most cases, the desired scene can be retrieved by merely selecting the information submitted by a computer. Accordingly, the user need not consider suitable keywords or video features which primarily define the desired scene, and can retrieve the scene even when his or her memory is uncertain. Accordingly, the present invention is comprehensible even to amateurs. The associated information superposition means displays a part of or all of the information selected from among the associated information of the matter appearing in the video under playback, in superposition with the position of the matter in the displayed video or in the form which clearly represents that this matter and its associated information correspond to each other. Accordingly, the user can immediately learn information about the matter appearing in an associated retrieval and can accurately learn the information of particular matter without any confusion. Because the associated information registration changing means is provided, a part of or all o
Miyatake Takafumi
Nagasaka Akio
Tanaka Kazuaki
Ueda Hirotada
Antonelli Terry Stout & Kraus LLP
Boccio Vincent F.
Garber Wendy
Hitachi , Ltd.
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