Summarizing video content

A method of automatically extracting summaries of video content, comprising:

• accessing, by a data processing system, from a video database, a first video content element including a plurality of frames;
• down-sampling, by the data processing system, the first video content element to produce a first subset of the plurality of frames of the first video content element using periodic sampling of the plurality of frames with a sampling rate based on at least one of a length of the first video element, a target truncation time of a second video content element, and a target frame count of the plurality of frames in the first subset;
• calculating, by the data processing system, for each second subset of a plurality of second subsets consisting of one or more frames from the first subset, a score indicative of quality of the one or more frames in the each second subset;
• identifying, by the data processing system, from the plurality of second subsets, a second subset based on the score for the each second subset;
• selecting, by the data processing system, a set of consecutive frames of the first video content element comprising a first frame and a second frame of the identified second subset, wherein the first frame and the second frame are adjacent frames in the identified second subset, and the first frame and the second frame are non-adjacent frames in the set of consecutive frames of the first video content element, and wherein a number of frames in the set of consecutive frames of the first video content element is less than a number of frames in the first video content element, and the number of frames in the set of consecutive frames of the first video content element is greater than a number of frames in the identified second subset;
• and
• generating, by the data processing system, the second video content element comprising the set of consecutive frames of the first video content element.