Television – Special applications – Observation of or from a specific location
Patent
1993-12-08
1995-11-28
Britton, Howard W.
Television
Special applications
Observation of or from a specific location
348700, H04N 718
Patent
active
054712394
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for detecting the position of scene changes in video sequences.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In professional television production, it is conventional practice to use a first medium for recording the video pictures and a second medium for recording the sound. Subsequently, editing may be performed separately upon the recorded images and again separately upon the recorded sound, often with additional sounds being added to the sound track recorded during the initial production. Thereafter, the vision and the sound are brought together to produce the final result.
As used herein, pictures recorded or transmitted in electrical form will be referred to as video signals, sound transmitted or recorded in electrical formwill be referred to as audio signals and the combination of the two will be referred to as television signals. Thus, as previously described, the final editing step involves the combining of edited video with edited audio to produce a television signal, in which the sound is synchronised with the pictures.
The majority of editing procedures consist of initially editing the video signals and, thereafter, adding the audio track to the previously edited video track. This may involve combining audio signals from many different sources and audio mixing facilities for performing this combination of different source material are known. However, a problem with editing an audio track to a previously edited video track is that it can take a significant amount of time to locate positions within the video track at which changes are to occur to the audio track. Usually, these changes take place when the video track cuts between scenes, or when something significant happens to the video pictures.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of detecting the position of scene changes in video sequences.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of detecting the position of a scene change in a video sequence, characterised by the steps of generating data representing the information content of each video frame; processing said data to locate significant changes in said information content and identifying the position of said significant changes, so as to identify the position of likely scene changes.
In a preferred embodiment, information content is determined by compressing the video data and assessing how much data is present after compression. Compression may be performed in accordance with the JPEG standard for spatial compression, wherein, the amount of data resulting for each frame (after compression has taken place) will vary, in dependence upon the information content of the initial source frame.
In a preferred embodiment, the method is used to identify scene changes in a previously edited video sequence, allowing an audio track to be edited to said video sequence.
In a second preferred embodiment, scene changes are detected in un-edited video, to facilitate the editing of the video material. Preferably, the editing of source video material is performed together with the editing of source audio material, thereby removing the constraint of having to edit either the audio material of the video material first.
The previously described preferred embodiments relate to using the inventive technique on recorded video. In a preferred third embodiment, the method is used on live video, possibly produced by a video camera. Thus, the method may be employed in security systems, in which a significant change in the information content of the scene may be interpreted as an intruder entering into an area subject to video surveillance. Thus, on detecting the presence of such an intruder, further measures may be taken, such as raising an alarm, activating additional circuits, switching on a recording device or improving the quality of recordings made by a recording device.
The invention will now be described by way of example only, with reference to the accompan
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Hill Philip N. C.
Randall Bruce W.
Britton Howard W.
Solid State Logic Limited
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