JPH09312818A - Dynamic image serving method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a dynamic image serving method in which a user easily grasps contents of the dynamic image and a reproduction time or the like and each dynamic image is easily identified from other dynamic images in the case of serving a plurality of dynamic images on an electronic newspaper. SOLUTION: A plurality of frames are segmented from among dynamic image data to be served for readers and stored as thumb nail images. In the case of showing the dynamic image for the user, a plurality of the thumb nail images are displayed for each dynamic image. The frame segmented as the thumb nail image is selected at a prescribed interval or the frame where a scene of the dynamic image data is largely changed is selected. In the case of displaying the thumb nail image, the number of the displayed images is adjusted depending on the reproduction time of the original dynamic image.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to an electronic newspaper,
In particular, the present invention relates to a moving image presentation method that allows the user to easily understand the content of the moving image data without reproducing it.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When a moving image is handled in an electronic publication, there are roughly two types of data reproducing methods. One is a method of automatically starting reproduction with the display of a certain page or scene, which is used when an animation is used for the purpose of effect. The other is a method of starting the reproduction by an explicit instruction of the user such as a mouse click, which is often used when it is desired to convey the content of the moving image to the user.

In the case of adopting the method of starting the reproduction according to the user's instruction, in order to provide the user with a material for judging whether or not the reproduction is carried out, and in order to arouse the user's interest and want to see it, It is necessary to provide information that gives suggestions regarding the content of the video. In general,
Presenting still images called thumbnails and some descriptive texts is being done. The still images used for thumbnails are often the first frame in the video or a characteristic frame that may be of interest to the user, and the content of the explanation is related to the title and content of the video, the size of the video, and playback. Time etc.

[0004]

The above-mentioned conventional technique has the following problems.

That is, even for a moving image of several tens of seconds, the content cannot be explained completely with one still image and a few lines of text, so the user should select the moving image that he really wants to see. Is not always easy.

In particular, in the case of an electronic newspaper that distributes electronic article information, since a large number of topics are provided to the reader for one field, a situation in which a plurality of similar images at first glance are lined up on the screen. Often happens. For example, considering introducing the results of Sumo wrestling in the sports section, trying to introduce multiple efforts or comparing with the results of the previous place will result in many images with similar compositions lined up. Become. The use of small images to increase the information presented on a single screen makes it even more indistinguishable.

Therefore, the user must read the explanation in detail in order to know whether or not there is an image to be viewed. Even for publishers of newspapers, it takes time and effort to take out even slightly different frames from each video and create explanatory text that captures the characteristics of each frame. The time lag will also increase.

In addition, when data is provided via a network, the amount of data for moving images is larger than that for other types, so that the time required for downloading, the communication load, and the line charge are also serious problems. Therefore, the information about the screen size, the reproduction time, and the like, which are closely related to the number of bytes of moving image data or the amount of data, is an important factor for determining whether or not the user views the moving image. However, in the above conventional technique,
If not written in the description, the user cannot know the information until downloading.

Furthermore, since moving pictures can be fast-forwarded at most and are bound for a certain period of time in order to obtain information, if you want to obtain a large amount of information in a short time or want to know the contents at a glance, you must play it back one by one. It is inconvenient to have to.

In a moving picture editing apparatus, there is also a method in which a moving picture to be edited is divided into scenes and the respective first frames are arranged on the screen so that the editing operator can grasp the flow of the picture. However, even in this case, since only one thumbnail image is assigned to each scene that is a unit for editing operations such as replacement and deletion, the above-described problem occurs with respect to the divided moving image.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a moving picture presenting method that can easily identify each moving picture from other moving pictures when presenting a plurality of moving pictures to a user.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a moving picture presenting method which allows a user to easily grasp the contents of a moving picture, the reproduction time and the like.

[0013]

According to the present invention, a plurality of frames are cut out from moving picture data provided to a reader and stored as thumbnail images. When it is desired to show the moving picture to the user, It displays a plurality of thumbnail images. As a method of cutting out a frame used for a thumbnail, there are a method of selecting a frame of a portion of the moving image data in which a video changes greatly, and a method of cutting out at a constant interval. Also, when displaying thumbnails, the number of images to be displayed is increased or decreased according to the reproduction time of the original moving image.

The user sees the thumbnail to determine whether or not to reproduce the moving image, and when reproducing, selects the button associated with the thumbnail to reproduce the moving image corresponding to the thumbnail.

[0015]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

In this embodiment, a case of an electronic newspaper system that delivers article information including moving image data via a network will be described. In the present embodiment, each article is managed collectively by genres such as politics, economy, sports, etc., and all articles of one genre are displayed on one screen and provided to the reader.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a system configuration of an electronic newspaper service to which the present invention is applied.

In FIG. 1, 100 is an electronic newspaper server that provides electronic newspapers. Disk devices 102, 104, 106 store article information, moving image data, and thumbnail images provided by the electronic newspaper system, respectively. 110 is a display and 112 is an input device, which are used for maintenance of data in the server. A communication device 116 communicates with the client via the communication line 118. Further, 114 is a main memory, and 108 is a control device for controlling all of them.

Reference numeral 120 is an electronic newspaper client for viewing articles in the electronic newspaper. 122 is a disk device, 12
Reference numeral 4 denotes a communication device that communicates with the server, and the display 128 and the input device 130 are used for the instruction operation of the reader for the electronic newspaper server and the output of electronic newspaper articles. Thirteen
Reference numeral 2 is a main memory, and 126 is a control device for controlling these clients.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of the structure of the article and moving picture management table used in the electronic newspaper service to which the present invention is applied.

In FIG. 2, reference numeral 200 denotes an article management table for managing articles of the electronic newspaper, which is divided for each genre. 202 is an article I for uniquely identifying the article
D, 204 is the data type of article information, 206 is the date and time when the article information was created, 208 is the title of the article, and 210 is the body of the article information. It should be noted that in the present embodiment, the format of information included in each article is one type, and the articles are not mixed in each article. Article information body 210
In the article, text information is stored in an article whose type 204 is text, and in the case of an article whose type 204 is a moving image, a pointer to the moving image management table 220 is further stored.

In the moving picture management table 220, 222
Is a data file name of the moving image data body, 224 is the number of still images used as thumbnails, and 226 is a data file name of thumbnail images.

The article management table 200 and the moving picture management table 220 are stored in the disk device 122.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a screen provided to the reader in the electronic newspaper service to which the present invention is applied.

In FIG. 3, a viewer screen 300 displays an electronic newspaper. 302 is a title bar, 31
Reference numeral 0 is an area for displaying command buttons for controlling the electronic newspaper, and reference numeral 312 is a scroll bar for scrolling the screen display when the article information is too large to fit in the display. Reference numerals 304, 306, and 308 are areas displaying article information. Although only three articles are visible in FIG. 3, this area is of course generated by the number of articles, and other articles can be viewed by operating the scroll bar. In this embodiment, the explicit button for instructing the moving image reproduction is not provided, and the area itself in which the thumbnail image is displayed is used as the button.

Next, based on the flowchart of FIG.
An example of a procedure for generating a thumbnail image provided to the reader will be shown.

First, the moving image data provided to the reader is read (step 400), and a name for unique management in the electronic newspaper is given (step 402). A variable N for recording the number of generated thumbnails and a variable F for recording the frame number to be cut out are initialized to 1 (step 404).

The display state of the F-th frame of the moving image is generated as still image data, and as a file having a name obtained by combining the file name given in step 402 and the number of thumbnails N, a thumbnail image name area 226 of the moving image management table 220. (Step 406). In this embodiment, the moving image is cut out as thumbnail images every 300 frames. The number of 300 frames is 30 frames for cutting out the video every 10 seconds.
It is calculated in seconds and of course any other number may be used.

Next, it is judged whether the total number of frames of the moving image is larger than F + 300, that is, whether the number of remaining frames is larger than 300 (step 408). F is increased by 300 (step 410), and the thumbnail image is added again by the process of step 406. The larger the number of frames, that is, the longer the playback time of the moving image, the larger the number of thumbnails generated in this step.

If the number of remaining frames is less than 300, the thumbnail number N at that time is stored in the thumbnail number area 224 of the stored moving image management table 220 (step 412), and the moving image data is named in step 402. And store it in a file and end the process (step 41).
4).

In the present embodiment, the frames are cut out at regular intervals, but of course other methods are conceivable. For example, there is a method of cutting out the frames of the part where the image changes greatly. In that case, the frame is examined frame by frame, and the frame whose difference from the previous frame is larger than a certain value is stored as a thumbnail image. Of course, only one of these clipping methods may be adopted, but it may be appropriately selected according to the characteristics of the moving image. The method of cutting out at a constant interval is suitable for an image that continuously changes, while the method of cutting out a change point is suitable for an image in which an angle is frequently changed. In addition, a method may be adopted in which these are combined and frames are cut out at regular intervals, and if there is a frame in which the video changes greatly, that frame is also added.

When providing articles to the reader, the data is sequentially read from the beginning of the article management table 200 and displayed. When the type of article is a moving image, the corresponding moving image management table 220 is referred to, an area is secured so that images corresponding to the number of thumbnails 224 can be displayed, and the thumbnail image 2 is displayed.
26 are arranged in order.

By arranging a plurality of thumbnail images generated by the above method, the flow of video can be expressed, and the reader can grasp the contents more accurately. Also, by increasing the number of thumbnail images in proportion to the playback time of the video, the reader can grasp the playback time just by looking at the thumbnail, so decide whether to play it at your convenience. You can

The reproduction of the moving image is performed by the reader clicking the mouse button in the area 306 or 308 where the thumbnail is displayed. When the mouse is clicked, the video data 2 corresponding to the clicked area
22 is read out, the application for video reproduction is started, and reproduction of video data is started.

[0035]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Information that better reflects the content of the moving image can be provided by the plurality of thumbnail images, so that the user can easily understand the content of the moving image, the reproduction time, and the like. Further, even if there are a plurality of similar moving images, the difference in content appears in the thumbnail image, so that each moving image can be distinguished from other moving images. As a result, the user can quickly find the target video and determine whether or not to play each video.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a system configuration of an electronic newspaper service to which the present invention has been applied.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of configurations of an article management table and a moving image management table used in an electronic newspaper service to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a screen provided to a reader in an electronic newspaper service to which the present invention has been applied.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an example of a moving image thumbnail image generation process provided to a reader in an electronic newspaper service to which the present invention is applied.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 ... Electronic newspaper server, 120 ... Electronic newspaper client, 200 ... Article management table, 220 ... Movie management table.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. When a plurality of frames are cut out from moving image data and are stored as still images and the moving images are to be shown to a user, the plurality of frames previously cut out for each moving image are displayed by a user. And a user selects a button associated with the presented frame to reproduce and display the original moving image data obtained by cutting out the frame. 2. A method of cutting out a plurality of frames from the moving image data, comparing successive frames and selecting a frame having a large change amount from the preceding frame. The video presentation method described in 1. 3. The moving image presenting method according to claim 1, wherein a frame at regular intervals is selected as a method for cutting out a plurality of frames from the moving image data. 4. The moving image presenting method according to claim 1, wherein the number of frames to be presented to the user is determined according to the reproduction time of the corresponding moving image.