Patent EP0555028A2 successfully refreshed from Google Patents.
EP0555028A2
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An apparatus and method for manipulating digital data relating to motion video images
Assignee: International Business Machines Corp
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Filing: 1993-01-29
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2013-01-29
Abstract
Abstract The present invention provides an apparatus and method for manipulating digital data relating to motion video images, in which motion video image information is used to manage and retrieve a motion video image. A whole motion video image R is hierarchically divided into frame sequences A, A1, A11 ... of shorter time according to the construction and the semantic contents thereof, and logical frame structure data (10, 13, 15, 16, 17) representing the hierarchical relationship of the frame sequences, attribute data At of the frame sequences, and still video images rf of representative frames are generated; these are associated with each other to create a data file. Retrieval of a motion video image is performed by extracting frame sequences using the attribute data and logical frame structure as retrieval keys for the data file of the motion video image information, and by confirming the contents using the still video image rf of the representative frames. By this approach any scene can be randomly accessed and associated scenes can also be retrieved easily, and thus a motion video image of interest can quickly be retrieved from a long sequence of motion video images.
Inventors
- 👤 Jung-Kook Hong
- 👤 Toyohisa Kaneko
- 👤 Junichi Takahashi
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-11-09 13:51
CPC Classifications
G; G11; G11B; G11B27/00; G11B27/10; G11B27/34; G06; G06F; G06F16/00; G06F16/70; G06F16/71; G11B27/102; G11B27/105; G11B27/19; G11B27/28; G11B2220/00; G11B2220/20; G11B2220/25; G11B2220/2537; G11B2220/2587
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 11
Claim 1
Independent Claim
222 words
Apparatus for manipulating digital data relating to motion video images, the apparatus comprising storage means (22) for storing the motion video images, means (21) for reproducing the motion video images, and a digital data processing system having a motion video image information generating portion and an image retrieval portion (37); the data processing system being characterised in that the information generating portion comprises: scene change detector (25) for receiving a digital representation of a motion video image as a series of frames and for detecting the frames at which changes in scenes occur so as to arrange the individual frames of said motion video image into frame sequences (14); logical frame structure creating means (28) for determining the start and end frames of each frame sequence from the output of said scene change detector, and for creating a logical frame structure (10) containing digital data relating to the frame sequences (14); a first digital data store (33) for storing the logical frame structure (10) in conjunction with attribute information; representative frame creating means (27) for determining, for each frame sequence, a representative frame (18) of that frame sequence, and for retrieving the still video image data of the representative frame from the storage means (22); and a second digital data store (31) for storing the still video image data in digital form.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
28 words
Apparatus as claimed in Claim 1 wherein the changes in scenes detected by the scene change detector (25) are physical or semantic changes in the motion video image.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
88 words
Apparatus as claimed in Claim 1 or Claim 2, further characterised in that the image retrieval portion (37) of the data processing system comprises: a memory (40) for storing the frame sequences data, the still video image data of the representative frames (18), and the attribute information of the individual frame sequences; and retrieval means (39) for retrieving a particular frame sequence from said memory (40) by the use of said attribute data and displaying the still video image of the representative frame for that particular frame sequence.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
52 words
Apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein the memory (40) of said image retrieval portion (37) further includes the logical frame structure describing the logical structure of the individual frame sequences, and said retrieval means (39) extracts the particular frame sequence according to said logical frame structure data and the attribute information.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
79 words
Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim, further comprising an interactive input/output means (34) through which a user can enter into the data processing system the attribute information of each frame sequence, said logical frame structure creating means (28) representing the logical frame structure (10) on a display device (36) of said input/output means (34), whereby a user can divide or merge the frame sequences represented in the logical frame structure so as to alter the logical frame structure.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
25 words
Apparatus as claimed in Claim 5, in which said retrieval means (39) displays frame sequences extracted from said memory (40) on said display device (36).
Claim 7
Independent Claim
175 words
A method of manipulating digital data relating to motion video images in an apparatus comprising storage means (22) for storing the motion video images, means (21) for reproducing the motion video images, and a digital data processing system; the method comprising the steps of: (a) entering a digital representation of the motion video image as a series of frames into the data processing system; (b) detecting the frames at which changes in scenes occur so as to arrange the individual frames of said motion video image into frame sequences (14); (c) determining the start and end frames of each frame sequence from the output of said detecting step; (d) creating a logical frame structure (10) containing digital data relating to the frame sequences (14); (e) storing the logical frame structure in conjunction with attribute information; (f) determining, for each frame sequence, a representative frame (18) of that frame sequence; (g) retrieving the still video image data of the representative frame from storage means (22); and (h) storing the still video image data in digital form.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
37 words
A method as claimed in Claim 7, wherein the individual frames of said motion video image are organized into the plurality of frame sequences on the basis of physical or semantic changes in the motion video image.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
84 words
A method as claimed in Claim 7 or Claim 8, further comprising the steps of: automatically organizing, at step (c), the individual frames of said motion video images into frame sequences according to an inclusion relationship; displaying the organization of said frame sequences on a display device (36); dividing and merging the frame sequences according to user input; and creating, at step (d), the logical frame structure for said frame sequences based on the frame sequences as altered by the dividing and merging step.
Claim 10
Independent Claim
89 words
A method as claimed in any of Claims 7, 8 or 9, further comprising the steps of: entering into the data processing system a search request in the form of attribute data entered by a user; retrieving a particular frame sequence including said attribute data from storage; and displaying the still video image data of the representative frame of that frame sequence on a display device (36), the retrieval of the particular frame sequence being performed by the use of said logical frame structure data and said attribute data.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
35 words
A method as claimed in Claim 10, comprising the further step of reproducing, at user request, the complete frame sequence represented by the still video image data on said motion video image reproducing means (21).
References Cited (Backward Citations)
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