Content-based video indexing for the support of digital library search

Presents a digital library search engine that combines efforts of the AMIS and DMW research projects, each covering significant parts of the problem of finding the required information in an enormous mass of data. The most important contributions of our work are the following: (1) We demonstrate a flexible solution for the extraction and querying of meta-data from multimedia documents in general. (2) Scalability and efficiency support are illustrated for full-text indexing and retrieval. (3) We show how, for a more limited domain, like an intranet, conceptual modelling can offer additional and more powerful query facilities. (4) In the limited domain case, we demonstrate how domain knowledge can be used to interpret low-level features into semantic content. In this short description, we focus on the first and fourth item

Digital Image Access & Retrieval

The 33th Annual Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing, held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in March of 1996, addressed the theme of "Digital Image Access & Retrieval." The papers from this conference cover a wide range of topics concerning digital imaging technology for visual resource collections. Papers covered three general areas: (1) systems, planning, and implementation; (2) automatic and semi-automatic indexing; and (3) preservation with the bulk of the conference focusing on indexing and retrieval.published or submitted for publicatio

Indexing, browsing and searching of digital video

Video is a communications medium that normally brings together moving pictures with a synchronised audio track into a discrete piece or pieces of information. The size of a “piece ” of video can variously be referred to as a frame, a shot, a scene, a clip, a programme or an episode, and these are distinguished by their lengths and by their composition. We shall return to the definition of each of these in section 4 this chapter. In modern society, video is ver

An examination of automatic video retrieval technology on access to the contents of an historical video archive

Purpose – This paper aims to provide an initial understanding of the constraints that historical video collections pose to video retrieval technology and the potential that online access offers to both archive and users. Design/methodology/approach – A small and unique collection of videos on customs and folklore was used as a case study. Multiple methods were employed to investigate the effectiveness of technology and the modality of user access. Automatic keyframe extraction was tested on the visual content while the audio stream was used for automatic classification of speech and music clips. The user access (search vs browse) was assessed in a controlled user evaluation. A focus group and a survey provided insight on the actual use of the analogue archive. The results of these multiple studies were then compared and integrated (triangulation). Findings – The amateur material challenged automatic techniques for video and audio indexing, thus suggesting that the technology must be tested against the material before deciding on a digitisation strategy. Two user interaction modalities, browsing vs searching, were tested in a user evaluation. Results show users preferred searching, but browsing becomes essential when the search engine fails in matching query and indexed words. Browsing was also valued for serendipitous discovery; however the organisation of the archive was judged cryptic and therefore of limited use. This indicates that the categorisation of an online archive should be thought of in terms of users who might not understand the current classification. The focus group and the survey showed clearly the advantage of online access even when the quality of the video surrogate is poor. The evidence gathered suggests that the creation of a digital version of a video archive requires a rethinking of the collection in terms of the new medium: a new archive should be specially designed to exploit the potential that the digital medium offers. Similarly, users' needs have to be considered before designing the digital library interface, as needs are likely to be different from those imagined. Originality/value – This paper is the first attempt to understand the advantages offered and limitations held by video retrieval technology for small video archives like those often found in special collections

A Study on the Open Source Digital Library Software's: Special Reference to DSpace, EPrints and Greenstone

The richness in knowledge has changed access methods for all stake holders in retrieving key knowledge and relevant information. This paper presents a study of three open source digital library management software used to assimilate and disseminate information to world audience. The methodology followed involves online survey and study of related software documentation and associated technical manuals.Comment: 9 Pages, 3 Figures, 1 Table, "Published with International Journal of Computer Applications (IJCA)

The design and implementation of an infrastructure for multimedia digital libraries

We develop an infrastructure for managing, indexing and serving multimedia content in digital libraries. This infrastructure follows the model of the Web, and thereby is distributed in nature. We discuss the design of the Librarian, the component that manages meta data about the content. The management of meta data has been separated from the media servers that manage the content itself. Also, the extraction of the meta data is largely independent of the Librarian. We introduce our extensible data model and the daemon paradigm that are the core pieces of this architecture. We evaluate our initial implementation using a relational database. We conclude with a discussion of the lessons we learned in building this system, and proposals for improving the flexibility, reliability, and performance of the syste

The TREC2001 video track: information retrieval on digital video information

The development of techniques to support content-based access to archives of digital video information has recently started to receive much attention from the research community. During 2001, the annual TREC activity, which has been benchmarking the performance of information retrieval techniques on a range of media for 10 years, included a ”track“ or activity which allowed investigation into approaches to support searching through a video library. This paper is not intended to provide a comprehensive picture of the different approaches taken by the TREC2001 video track participants but instead we give an overview of the TREC video search task and a thumbnail sketch of the approaches taken by different groups. The reason for writing this paper is to highlight the message from the TREC video track that there are now a variety of approaches available for searching and browsing through digital video archives, that these approaches do work, are scalable to larger archives and can yield useful retrieval performance for users. This has important implications in making digital libraries of video information attainable

Content-based access to digital video: the Físchlár system and the TREC video track

This short paper presents an overview of the Físchlár system - an operational digital library of several hundred hours of video content at Dublin City University which is used by over 1,000 users daily, for a variety of applications. The paper describes how Físchlár operates and the services that it provides for users. Following that, the second part of the paper gives an outline of the TREC Video Retrieval track, a benchmarking exercise for information retrieval from video content currently in operation, summarising the operational details of how the benchmarking exercise is operating

Access to recorded interviews: A research agenda

Recorded interviews form a rich basis for scholarly inquiry. Examples include oral histories, community memory projects, and interviews conducted for broadcast media. Emerging technologies offer the potential to radically transform the way in which recorded interviews are made accessible, but this vision will demand substantial investments from a broad range of research communities. This article reviews the present state of practice for making recorded interviews available and the state-of-the-art for key component technologies. A large number of important research issues are identified, and from that set of issues, a coherent research agenda is proposed