Patent ID: 8224087

Claim:
A method of using a video digest generator device for automated generation of a metadata related to video content from at least a plurality of at least ten sequential frames, comprising the steps of: inputting the plurality of sequential frames; identifying a plurality of video elements from the sequential frames of the video content, each of the video elements including a spatio-temporal group of contiguous pixels spanning at least some of the plurality of sequential frames, wherein the spatio-temporal group of contiguous pixels includes 3 dimensions in which 2 dimensions are 2 spatial axes and 1 dimension is a temporal axis, and wherein the 2 spatial axes form a plane corresponding to a video frame, and the temporal axis corresponds to time over which different ones of the video frames occur; operating upon various ones of the video elements to obtain a plurality of video aggregates, each video aggregate including an aggregate spatio-temporal group of contiguous pixels spanning at least certain ones of the plurality of sequential frames, and wherein at least some of the video aggregates include more than one video element therein; and assigning a rating to each video aggregates, the step of assigning including, for certain ones of the video aggregates, calculating a similarity or a dissimilarity based upon a similarity algorithm or a dissimilarity algorithm, respectively, thereby obtaining the metadata related to the video content; and using said metadata to control, in conjunction with input from the user of a Digital Video Recorder or other device that displays video content, and/or factory default information, the operation of said Digital Video Recorder or other device that displays said video content.