Físchlár is a shared video retrieval system that lets users record, browse and watch television programmes using their web browser. In Físchlár, the programmes users can watch and record are organised by channel, by theme and by personal recommendation as provided by the ChangingWorlds’ ClixSmart personalisation engine. Our initial results from user trials illustrate the usage of each of these features

Browne, Paul

Cotter, Paul

McDonald, Kieran

Smeaton, Alan F.

Smyth, Barry

English

Irish Universities

Use of the Físchlár video library system

DCU Online Research Access Service

Use of the Físchlár Video Library SystemKieran Mc Donald1, Barry Smyth2, Alan F. Smeaton1,Paul Browne1, Paul Cotter21Centre for Digital Video Processing, Dublin City University,Dublin 9, Ireland, Tel: 353 1 7005616{kmcdon, asmeaton, pbrowne}@compapp.dcu.iehttp://www.fischlar.dcu.ie2ChangingWorlds Ltd, Campus Innovation Centre, University College Dublin,Dublin 4, Ireland(also Smart Media Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland){barry.smyth, paul.cotter}@changingworlds.comhttp://www.changingworlds.comAbstract. Físchlár is a shared video retrieval system that lets users record,browse and watch television programmes using their web browser.  In Físchlár,the programmes users can watch and record are organised by channel, by themeand by personal recommendation as provided by the ChangingWorlds’ClixSmart personalisation engine.  Our initial results from user trials illustratethe usage of each of these features.1 IntroductionWith the arrival of new cable and satellite television services, and the nextgeneration of Digital TV systems, we will soon be faced with anunprecedented level of programme choice – even today users of these systemsbenefit from upwards of 200 channels and 4,000 programmes per day, andthis is set to increase rapidly. The current generation of electronic programmeguides (EPGs) go some way to assisting users by offering an online source oflistings and schedule information, but they do not go far enough. The burdenof search is still very much on the user.  At the same time users are essentiallyslaves to the television schedules and are constantly forced to choose betweencompeting viewing options: if a user watches a programme then she missesparts of other programmes. Personal video recorder such as AVIR [1], TiVo[2] and ReplyTV [3] provide a current solution to this problem by providingusers with local storage and personalised on-screen EPGs for choosing whatto watch and record.In this paper we report on user trials of a shared video retrieval system thatwas developed as part of a joint research project between the Centre forDigital Video Processing and ChangingWorlds.  This system combinesFíschlár’s video indexing, browsing and playback technologies [4] withChangingWorlds’ personalised EPG [5,6].  In the sections that follow we willdescribe the Físchlár video retrieval system and its user-interface (Section 2)and preliminary results from its current trial (Section 3).2 The Físchlár Video Retrieval SystemFíschlár is a shared video retrieval system that lets users record, browse andwatch television programmes online using their web browser [4].2.1 Personalised Programme ListingsThe programmes our users can watch and record are listed by channel, bytheme and by personal recommendation as provided by the ClixSmartpersonalisation engine [5,6].  Users can also access programmes by their“favourites” category which lists the programmes they previously indicatedthey like.  Each programme also has a short textual description.Users rate programmes in a five point scale – hate, dislike, okay, like, love.These ratings are passed on to the ClixSmart personalisation engine whichprovides the recommendations for the user of programmes to watch andrecord.  The system assumes a user likes a programme if they record it andhave not previously rated it.2.2 Capturing and Storing ContentProgrammes are captured in MPEG1 format from any of eight broadcasttelevision channels.  Currently, we capture one channel of the eight at a time.Once captured, a programme is analysed for shot boundaries by comparingthe histograms of consecutive frames.  Then a keyframe is extracted for eachshot based on its similarity to the average histogram of that shot. After analysis, a recorded programme is put onto our video streamingserver which has up to 400 hours of storage and can support almost 200concurrent users.  The oldest programmes are removed to make space for thenew ones as required.  Currently, this results in a programme being availablefor playback for just over three weeks.2.3 User-Interface For Recording ProgrammesTo record a programme the user clicks the record section of the interface andthen browses the television schedule for today and tomorrow (Figure 1). Theuser can list the schedules by recommendations, favourites, televisionchannels or by themes. The user clicks on the programme’s name to record it.The programmes in gray cannot be recorded as some other programme isbeing recorded on a different channel at the same time.  A user can rate aprogramme by using the thumb buttons beside the programme’s description.Figure 1.  The user has selected the comedy theme from the record section of the web site.2.4 Interface For Browsing The Recorded ProgrammesBy default, the latest 7 days of recorded programmes are initially listed in theplay section of the interface (Figure 2).  To list programmes by favourites,recommendations, themes or channels the user selects the required listingfrom the Collection dropdown list. Users can browse a given programmeusing the keyframes that represent each of the programme’s shots and canstart playback of the video from any shot in the programme by clicking on itsrepresentative keyframe.Figure 2.  The user selected the ‘Fair City’ programme from the list ofprogrammes under the drama theme in the play section of the web site.The user has a choice of five content browsers – overview/detail, slideshow, scrollbar, dynamic overview and hierarchical browser [7]. Theoverview/detail browser displays an overview page and also allows browsingof all the keyframes in pages of 24 images.  The scrollbar browser lists all thekeyframes on a single page.  The slideshow browser lets the user flip throughthe keyframes one at a time.  The dynamic overview browser flips though thekeyframe group that the user puts the mouse over in the overview.  Thehierarchical browser displays the keyframes in a tree.3 EvaluationThe content browsers have undergone many usability tests with sample users.This has led to many refinements of the individual interfaces.  To improve oursystem we are performing trials with users on Dublin City University’scampus.  When the current trial is complete, analysis of the user activity,questionnaires and interviews will inform us of necessary refinement anddevelopment.We started user trials of the combined Físchlár-ClixSmart system inDecember 2000.  The system was made available to students in all thelaboratories of the Computer Applications Building in the University (500computers) and also from the apartments in the University’s residences.In this section we outline initial results from the current trial.  We willdescribe the users, and how they record and watch programmes.  We willshow the usage of the different content browsers and the use of the explicitratings.3.1 UsersThe profile of a typical user is a University student aged between 18 and 22.Those using it from the computer laboratories are computer literate andinterface problems may not be as visible with this user population.  Most ofthese users have a television and video recorder in their home and thereforethey are not dependent on the system for television access.  The users in thecomputer laboratories are using the system in a situation where there aresocial norms that have to be taken into account.  They might not watch certainprogrammes that they would watch in their home.  How they interact with thebrowsing system may also be different.In the two months of usage between December and February (excluding theChristmas break) 581 users registered and used the system.  A lot of theseusers have not been using the system for very long.  Over half logged in fortheir first time in the last 4 weeks.  Just under a half of all users have used thesystem only 1 or 2 times (Table 1).  So, what we are describing in this paper isthe initial behaviour of users.Table 1.  Number of times current users have logged into the system.3.2 Recording ProgrammesA minority, 140 of 580 users, choose programmes that the system will recordfor everyone.  About 100 of these users have chosen only 1 or 2 programmesto be recorded and just 20 users have made the majority of recordings.  3 usershave recorded 158, 108, 105 programmes respectively.  Typically fivedifferent people dictate what will be recorded on a specific day.  About 16 to20 hours of programmes are recorded and analysed each day.  When mostpeople access the television schedules they will not be able to choose anyprogrammes to be recorded as the choice will already have been made earlierin the morning.3.3 Comparing What is Browsed/Watched to What is RecordedWhen we compare the content that is being recorded to that which is beingwatched we see that there is a different pattern (Figures 3 and 4).  First, farmore content is recorded than is being watched.  A lot of programmes arebeing recorded that are never watched even by the people who record them. Figure 3.  Number of programmes recordedfrom each channel.Figure 4.  Number of times a programme isbrowsed or watched from each channel.The popularity of RTE1 may be due to the fact that it is the default channellisted in the recording section (Figure 1).  Some users go from this channelNumber of logins Number of users10 or more 785 – 9 1013 – 4 1481 – 2 254Total 581listing to the next until they reach the last when choosing programmes torecord.  If they set an initial recording in RTE1 then they limit what they canrecord on the other channels.  Restricting the number of recording requeststhat users can initiate will make them more thoughtful of what they do record.We should also show each user the programmes that cannot be recorded as aresult of placing a given recording. And so, hopefully a user can make a moreinformed decision (if only for herself) as to what to record.Figure 5.  Number of times each method is used to browse thetelevision schedules in the recording section of the web site.Figure 6.  Number of times each method is used tobrowse the play list.  Last 7 days is default.In Figure 5 we can see that when browsing the television schedule, listingsby channels are used twice as often as listings by themes.  Also, themes areaccessed three times more than favourites or recommendations.  In theFíschlár-ClixSmart system there are 8 channels and 13 themes.  So,recommendations and favourites are out performing the average access to achannel or theme.  A programme may belong to more than one theme andsome programmes do not belong to any of the current themes which probablyexplains why people are using the channels so much.  Perhaps what we cantake from these results is that people will use their favourites andautomatically generated recommendations but that they will also explore thecontents of a television schedule by classification (themes) and by channels.Also, since there are only 8 channels and 2 days schedules in the currentsystem, recommendations may be somewhat of a luxury.In contrast to the usage in the record section, in the play section of the sitethemes are more popular than channels in accessing the play list (Figure 6).Again favourites and recommendations get equal number of uses.  The latestseven days of recordings are listed by default, which explains its popularity.The channels option may suffer from being at the end of the dropdown listwhich is used to change between types of listings.  But even so the change ofbehaviour for browsing the play and record lists is significant. It could be thatin the play list, the channel of the programme is displayed but the themes thatthe programme belongs to are not.  By having the option ‘lastest 7 days’ ofrecordings we reduce the need to go through the play list channel by channelas people do in the television schedules for recording.3.4 Content BrowsingUsers normally use the first of our selection of video content browsers,overview/detail browser, which is also the default, for looking at theprogramme’s content (Figure 7).  Some users do actually use the otherbrowsers. Most of the users would not yet be familiar with browsing video orthese content browsers.  It is encouraging that at this early stage people areusing the content browsers especially when they are not fully integrated withplayback. Figure 7.  Number of times each content browser is used.3.5 Rating ProgrammesThere are 251 users of our system who have rated programmes.   A third(1,000) of all ratings are generated automatically by the system when a userrecords a programme. Two thirds (2,000) of the ratings are explicit. Just 20people account for over half of all ratings and the top person has rated 426programmes.  However, this may have been done so as to list nearly allprogrammes on one page.key: OD: Overview/Detail Browser SS: Slide Show Browser SB: Scroll Bar Browser DO: Dynamic Overview Browser H: Hierarchical BrowserThe ratings feature is not fully integrated with the play list.  Currently, therating thumbs are not displayed in the play list.  This will be rectified. Also,we will need to build a recommender system that can work from users’viewing habits in addition to explicit ratings.  Sensible rules for when to inferusers like a programme may also be a useful shortcut.4 ConclusionsNetworked or local video storage can alleviate the problems of televisionschedule clashes and allow users to watch programmes when they want.Recommender systems can make users aware of what programmes they maylike to watch either at broadcast time, or later. By using content browsers theuser may also choose how he watches the programme - by skipping somesegments like advertisement breaks or by disregarding the programme unitand watching only selective segments of the programme.The results presented in this paper are a first step in understanding howthese features are used by a group of users in a shared video system. However,these results will need to be corroborated by future trials of the Físchlár-ClixSmart system and by results from alternative systems.References1. Cecarelli, M., Mekenkamp, G., Person, E.: Home Multimedia Systems: On Personal VideoLibraries.  Proc. of IEEE Multimedia (ICMCS). Vol. 2. (1999) 1082-10852. TiVo, http://www.tivo.com, (visited March 2001).3. ReplayTV, http://www.replaytv.com, (visited March 2001).4. Lee, H., Smeaton, A., O'Toole C., Murphy, N., Marlow, S., O'Connor, N.: The FíschlárDigital Video Recording, Analysis, and Browsing System.  RIAO 2000 - Content-basedMultimedia Information Access. (2000) 1390-1399.5. Smyth, B., Cotter, P.: A Personalised TV Listings Service for the Digital TV Age. Journalof Knowledge-Based Systems 13(2-3) (2000) 53-59.6. Smyth, B., Cotter, P.: A Personalized Television Listings Service. Communications of theACM 43(8). ACM Press (2000) 107-111.7. Lee, H., Smeaton, A., Berrut, C., Murphy, N., Marlow, S., O'Connor, N.: Implementationand Analysis of Several Keyframe-Based Browsing Interfaces to Digital Video. 4thEuropean Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries.(2000).

A Personalised TV Listings Service for the Digital TV Age.

A Personalized Television Listings Service.

E.: Home Multimedia Systems: On Personal Video Libraries.

Implementation and Analysis of Several Keyframe-Based Browsing Interfaces to Digital Video.

N.: The Físchlár Digital Video Recording, Analysis, and Browsing System. RIAO

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Use of the Físchlár video library system

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