Patent ID: 7167809

Claim:
A method of automatically indexing a video of a football game having a plurality of plays, said video comprising a plurality of segments, each segment having at least one frame, where said plurality of segments are arranged in a sequence of types of shots comprising a shot of a scoreboard that precedes a play, a shot of said play from a sideline, and a shot of said play from an end zone, said method comprising: (a) inputting a said shot to a computing device; and (b) said computing device categorizing said shot as one of a scoreboard shot preceding said play, a sideline shot of said play, or an end zone shot of said play by: (i) categorizing said shot as a scoreboard shot based on at least one of: (1) whether said shot has less than a threshold of green pixels; (2) said shot is of less than a threshold duration; and (3) whether said shot has a motion complexity less than a threshold; and (ii) categorizing said shot as either an end zone shot or a sideline shot based on at least one of: (1) whether the preceding shot was classified as a scoreboard shot; and (2) whether an estimated angle of sidelines in a shot exceeds a threshold.