Patent ID: 6937266

Claim:
An automated event presentation system for capturing and viewing an event having event participants, comprising: an omni-directional camera system that provides a seamless onmi-directional image of the event and that automatically tracks event participants simultaneously to determine the event participants that are speaking using audio analysis including a microphone-array sound source localization technique to alleviate camera view switching delays and films the event; an automated online broadcasting system including a tracker module that controls and uses the omni-directional camera system and video tracking techniques to monitor and keep track of each of the tracked event participants simultaneously, and broadcasts the event; a virtual director module using a probabilistic finite state machine and receiving as input audio and video tracking results to automatically select at least a portion of the omni-directional image as an output view; and a viewer platform in communication with the automated online broadcasting system that allows a viewer to view the output view of the broadcasted event.