Patent ID: 7257261

Claim:
A method for generating at least one thumbnail image from a plurality of consecutive frames in a video stream, the method comprising: selecting a first frame and a second frame in a video stream; reducing at least one of resolution and size of the first frame and the second frame to respectively generate a first reduced frame and a second reduced frame; comparing said first reduced frame with said second reduced frame to determine whether difference between the first reduced frame and the second reduced frame exceeds a first threshold; selecting a sample frame from a plurality of frames in a first portion of the video stream, in response to determining that the difference between the first reduced frame and the second reduced frame does not exceed the first threshold, wherein the first frame is included at beginning of the first portion and the second frame is included at end of the first portion; determining whether the sample frame is blank; and generating a thumbnail from the sample frame, in response to determining that the sample frame is not blank.