Patent ID: 6964021

Claim:
A method for skimming video data wherein the video data comprises a plurality of scenes, comprising the steps of: dividing each scene in the plurality of scenes into a plurality of shots, wherein each shot comprises of a plurality of sections, wherein each scene is associated with a first attribute defining scene information, wherein each shot is associated with a second attribute defining shot information, and wherein each section is associated with a third attribute defining temporal information; forming a structure information index corresponding to each shot, wherein the structure information index comprises: a first reference to each scene in association with the respective first attribute, a second reference to each shot in association with the respective second attribute, and a third reference to each section in association with the respective third attribute, such that at least one section from each shot in each scene is selectable based on at least one of the corresponding first, second, and third attributes; selecting at least one scene from the plurality of scenes based on the first attribute in the structure information index; selecting at least one shot from said at least one scene based on the second attribute in the structure information index; selecting at least one section from said at least one shot based on the third attribute in the structure information index; and reproducing a plurality of selected sections from a plurality of selected shots in the selected scenes to skim the video data comprising the plurality of scenes, such that reproduction of at least one of the scenes, shots, and sections with similar attributes is minimized.