Patent ID: 7305128
Filing Date: 2007-12-04
Classification: G11B,H04N

Abstract:
1. A video segmentation method for segmenting video clips according to content of the video clips, the method comprising: receiving a video signal containing a plurality of video frames; applying a first horizontal scan line to video frames of the video signal, the first horizontal scan line selecting at least one row of pixels for analysis; analyzing the pixels of the video frame located on the first horizontal scan line to determine if colors of the pixels fall within a predetermined color range; indicating regions of adjacent pixels in the video frame that fall within the predetermined color range; creating a color map utilizing pixels located on the first horizontal scan line from a plurality of successive video frames; labeling the current video segment as a candidate video segment if the color map indicates the presence of a stable region of pixels falling within the predetermined color range for a predetermined number of successive video frames; for each candidate video segment, selecting one video frame out of every N video frames and creating a histogram of the stable region of each of the selected video frames; performing a first histogram comparison between the histograms corresponding to pairs of successively selected video frames; when a first histogram difference resulting from the first histogram comparison is greater than a first threshold value, performing a second histogram comparison on the stable regions of pairs of consecutive video frames located between the pair of successively selected video frames which resulted in the first histogram difference being greater than the first threshold value; and indicating a shot change in the candidate video segment when the second histogram comparison yields a second histogram difference greater than a second threshold value.