Method and system for detecting scenes and summarizing video sequences

A method of removing redundant scenes in a plurality of frames, each scene including at least one frame, the method comprising the steps of:

• detecting each scene in the plurality of frames, each scene including at least one related frame by:
• determining for each frame at least one global measurement;
• and
• determining a scene change between a pair of successive frames from a difference between the global measurements of each frame in the pair of frames, a Chi-squared value on a color histogram of each frame in the pair of frames, and a normalized motion compensated pixel difference between the frames;
• determining for each scene, an average color histogram for all frames included the scene;
• and
• comparing the average color histogram of each scene with the average color histogram of each of a selected number of subsequent scenes to identify scenes within the selected number of scenes having substantially similar average color histograms, each set of scenes having substantially similar average color histograms forming a set of related scenes.

A method of removing redundant scenes in a plurality of frames, each scene including at least one frame, the method comprising the steps of:

• detecting each scene in the plurality of frames, each scene including at least one related frame by:
• determining for each frame at least one global measurement;
• and
• determining a scene change between a pair of successive frames from a difference between the global measurements of each frame in the pair of frames, a Chi-squared value on a color histogram of each frame in the pair of frames, and a normalized motion compensated pixel difference between the frames;
• determining for each scene a summary measure derived from all frames in the scene;
• and
• comparing the summary measure of each scene with the summary measure of selected subsequent scenes using a standard error measure to identify at least one group of scenes having substantially similar summary measures.

A system for summarizing a temporally ordered plurality of scenes in a video sequence including a plurality of frames, comprising:

• an input device for receiving an input video sequence;
• a scene change detector coupled to the input device, the scene change detector detecting at least one scene in the plurality of frames, each scene including at least one related frame, the scene change detector detecting a scene change between a pair of successive frames from a difference between a global measurement of each frame in the pair of frames, a Chi-squared value on a color histogram of each frame in the pair of frames, and a normalized motion compensated pixel difference between the frames;
• a related scene detector, coupled to the scene change detector to receive a set of scenes, and determining at least one set of related scenes, the related scene detector determining a representative frame for each set of related scenes;
• a display for displaying the representative frame, and selected scenes;
• and
• a user interface display driver coupled to the related scene detector to receive the representative frames, and displaying each representative frame on the display.