JP3501643B2 - Video browsing method and device - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a moving image browsing method for browsing accumulated moving images and an apparatus for implementing the method, and in particular, enables browsing without missing an important scene in a short time. It is a thing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Accumulation of moving images is widely performed not only at broadcasting and movie making sites but also at ordinary households by recording broadcast programs and shooting with a video camera.

Further, in the next-generation broadcasting system, in order for the user to watch the program according to his / her taste without being buried in the information flood, the receiving side selects the program to be broadcast, which suits the user's taste. A receiving environment that automatically accumulates is under consideration. The user can view a favorite program from the accumulated programs on the display screen of the receiver at any time.

With respect to the moving images thus stored, when editing them or searching for a program to watch,
It becomes necessary to know the outline of the movie.

Conventionally, as a method of displaying an outline of a moving image, a method of cutting out the moving image at regular intervals and arranging the still images on the display screen in order has been adopted. The user is
This display screen is browsed to grasp the content of the video, decide whether to use the video for editing, and select whether to watch. This method is commonly used in digital video non-linear editors or editing software.

[0006]

However, in this conventional moving image browsing method, a still image cut out at regular intervals displays an important scene of the moving image, that is, an image of a large movement or an image of a new scene. Because it is not always done,
It has a drawback that it is difficult to accurately grasp the content of the moving image.

Further, since it is necessary to arrange a large number of still images on the screen, the display area of one still image becomes small, making it difficult to see. Further, unless the moving image is edited in advance to a certain length, the number of still images to be cut out increases, and a state in which it does not fit on the screen occurs.

Furthermore, since the moving image is expressed as a still image, it is impossible to perceive fine movement.

The present invention solves these conventional problems, and provides a moving image browsing method by which a viewer can accurately grasp the contents of a moving image, and an apparatus for implementing the method is provided. Has an aim.

[0010]

Therefore, in the moving image browsing method of the present invention, a weighting function indicating the degree of change of a moving image to be browsed is extracted as a function of time t, and the reproduction at time t when the value of this weighting function is small. The playback of the video is controlled to increase the speed.

Therefore, an image with little change is reproduced at high speed, and an image with large change is reproduced at normal speed. Therefore, the content of the moving image can be accurately grasped in a short time.

[0012]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The invention according to claim 1 of the present invention is a compression code as a weighting function indicating a degree of change of a moving image to be browsed in a moving image browsing method for reproducing a stored moving image for browsing. At the time of the movie that has been accumulated and accumulated
The bit rate corresponding to the time t is extracted, and the reproduction of the moving image is controlled so as to increase the reproduction speed at the time t when the value of the weighting function is small. The reproduction speed when an image with little change is reproduced. Becomes fast, and the playback speed when playing an image with many changes becomes the normal speed. Compression coding
For videos that have been
Bit rate for images with high bit rate and little change
This bit rate is used as a weighting function because
You can

[0013]

According to the second aspect of the invention, the accumulated moving images are stored.
Play for viewing in the video viewing method.
As a weighting function indicating the degree of change of the moving image, the amount of color change in the moving image corresponding to time t is extracted and
If the value is small, the playback speed of the movie should be increased at time t.
This is for controlling reproduction, and the amount of color change is large in an image with a large change, and the amount of color change is small in an image with a small change. Therefore, this amount of color change can be used as a weighting function.

According to the third aspect of the invention, the moving picture is divided into a plurality of pieces, the divided moving pictures are reproduced in parallel, and the reproduced images are displayed separately on the display screen. , It is possible to grasp the content of the video in a short time.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the moving image is divided so that the integral values of the weighting functions are equal in each of the divided moving images, and the plurality of divided moving images are substantially equally divided as contents. To be done.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in a moving image browsing apparatus for reproducing the accumulated moving images for browsing, a storage means for storing the moving images and a weighting function indicating the degree of change of the moving images to be browsed are set at time t. Of the weighting function, a reproduction control means for controlling the reproduction speed at a time t when the value of the weighting function is small, and a moving image stored in the storage means to be reproduced under the control of the reproduction control means. A moving picture reproducing means is provided , and the accumulating means reproduces the compressed and encoded moving picture.
The weight extraction means stores the
Extract the bit rate corresponding to time t of the video
Is obtained by, it is possible to implement the video browsing method of claim 1.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in a moving image browsing apparatus for reproducing the accumulated moving images for browsing, a storage means for storing the moving images and a weighting function indicating the degree of change of the moving images to be browsed are set at time t. And a weight extracting means for extracting the moving image as a function to control the reproduction of each of the moving images, and in each reproduction of the moving image, increase the reproduction speed at time t when the value of the weighting function is small. Playback control means for controlling the above, a video playback means for splitting the video stored in the storage means into a plurality of videos under the control of the playback control means, and playing each video in parallel at a specified playback speed, and a video playback A plurality of images reproduced by the means 1
An image synthesizing unit for synthesizing so as to be displayed on the screen is provided , and the accumulating unit accumulates the compression-encoded moving image,
The weight extraction means uses the weight function as the weight function of the moving image.
The bit rate corresponding to the time t is extracted , and the moving image browsing method according to claim 3 can be implemented.

[0019]

[0020] The invention according to claim 7, reproduction control means, a video, which was to divide as the integral value of the weighting function is equal in each of the video after the division, according to claim 4 A video viewing method can be implemented.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

(First Embodiment) As shown in FIG. 1, an apparatus for carrying out the moving image browsing method of the first embodiment has a storage means 1 for storing a digitally recorded moving image and a moving image Weight extraction means 2 for obtaining a weight function, reproduction control means 3 for controlling the reproduction speed based on the value of the weight function, and moving image reproduction means 4 for reproducing a moving image under the control of the reproduction control means 3.
And a display unit 5 for displaying the reproduced moving image.

The weighting function of a moving image is a function of time t, which represents the importance of a moving image. An image with a large motion or a scene developed scene has a high importance, and an image with a small motion or a little change has an importance. Seen as low. The storage means 1 is, for example, MP
EG (Moving Picture Experts Group) -2 Vi
When a moving image compressed and encoded by a method such as deo is accumulated, the weight extraction means 2 calculates a bit rate of accumulated information corresponding to time t as a weight function.

MPEG-2 Video is an international standard IS
It is standardized by O / IEC13818-2. The bit rate can refer to the stored information in the state of being compressed and encoded. Therefore, it is not necessary to use a high-speed compression code decoder to obtain the weighting function. In particular, when a moving image sent at a variable bit rate is stored in the storage means 1 in advance, the bit rate can be obtained at the time of storage.

FIG. 2 shows a change in the bit rate of accumulated information due to the motion of a moving image. In FIG. 2A, the motion of the moving image is shown on the time axis, and the dark part indicates the moving part of the dynamic motion. As shown in FIG. 2B, the moving image data obtained by compression-encoding the moving image has a high bit rate at a portion where the moving image has a large motion, and has a small bit rate at a portion where the moving image has a small motion.

The weight extracting means 2 obtains the accumulated information of the moving image to be browsed from the accumulating means 1, obtains the bit rate corresponding to the time t, and outputs this to the reproduction controlling means 3 as a weighting function f (t). To do.

The reproduction control means 3 outputs reproduction control information for increasing the reproduction speed of the moving picture to the moving picture reproducing means 4 with respect to the decrease of the value of the weighting function f (t), and the moving picture reproducing means 4 stores the storing means 1 The video information for browsing is retrieved from and is reproduced according to the reproduction control information. This reproduced image is displayed on the display means 5.

As shown in FIG. 2C, the reproduction speed is maintained at the normal reproduction speed when the bit rate is high and the movement is rapid, and is high when the bit rate is small and the change is small.

As described above, according to this browsing method, a moving image portion that changes drastically is normally played back, and a moving image portion that changes little is played back at high speed according to the degree. In this way, high-speed reproduction is performed only on a moving image portion that does not change much, so that the viewer can view the moving image at that portion without feeling discomfort and grasp the contents. In addition, since the moving image portion that changes drastically is normally played back, it is possible to fully understand the content.

Further, although the playback speed changes, the moving image is displayed as it is, so that it is possible to recognize even fine movements according to the degree of attention.

Therefore, the viewer can accurately understand the contents of the moving image, including important scenes where the moving image changes drastically.

The browsing by this method can meet not only the grasp of the outline of the moving image content but also the request of the user who wants to view the moving image in a short time by shortening or omitting the redundant portion of the moving image.

Therefore, in a video-on-demand system that provides video information based on a user's request, this configuration (accumulation means 1, weight extraction means 2, reproduction control means) is provided on the server side for accumulating motion picture information. 3 and the moving picture reproducing means 4) are provided, and it becomes possible to provide a shortened moving picture in response to the user's request. In this case, by storing the reproduction speed calculated based on the weighting function, it is possible to promptly respond to the user's request.

Here, as the weighting function, time t
Although the bit rate corresponding to is calculated, the weighting function can be calculated using the amount of change in color in the moving image. Also, the reproduction control means is configured to turn on / off the reproduction speed according to the user's instruction. When the reproduction speed is on, the reproduction at the reproduction speed is controlled, and when the reproduction speed is off, the reproduction speed is turned off. It is also possible to operate so as to display a still image of the moving image at the time.

It is also possible to reproduce a video part that changes drastically at a high speed and reproduce a video part that changes little at a higher speed, or omit the video part. In this case, it becomes possible to browse in a very short time.

In the reproduction method in which the reproduction speed is increased as the degree of change of the moving image is smaller, when the moving image sent at the variable bit rate is accumulated in the accumulating means 1, various headers of accumulated information are used. Ignoring the overhead,
It is sufficient to read the stored information from the storage means 1 with a substantially equal number of bytes per unit time. Since reading at a constant speed is sufficient as described above, the maximum reading performance of the storage unit 1 can be continuously exerted, so that browsing with extremely high efficiency becomes possible. Conversely speaking, it can be said that the same effect as when the bit rate is used as the weighting function can be obtained only by reading the accumulated information of the same number of bytes per unit time.

(Second Embodiment) In the moving image browsing method of the second embodiment, one moving image is divided into a plurality of images, and their reproduced images are displayed side by side on one display screen.

As shown in FIG. 3, the apparatus for carrying out the moving image browsing method of this embodiment has a storage unit 1 for storing digitally recorded moving images and a weight extraction unit 2 for obtaining a weighting function of the moving images. And reproduction control means 3 for controlling the respective reproduction speeds of a plurality of images displayed on one screen based on the value of the weighting function, and moving images from a plurality of positions of a moving image are individually controlled under the control of the reproduction control means 3. A plurality of moving image reproducing means 4 for reproducing, the image combining means 6 for combining a plurality of reproduced moving images, and a display means 5 for displaying the combined moving images.

In this apparatus, as shown in FIG. 5, one screen of the display means 5 is divided into four windows, and the first moving image portion of the divided moving image stream is placed in the window 1 and the second moving image. The portion is simultaneously displayed in the window 2, the third moving image portion is displayed in the window 3, and the fourth moving image portion is displayed in the window 4.

As in the first embodiment, the weight extracting means 2 of this apparatus obtains the accumulated information of the moving image to be browsed (FIG. 4A) from the accumulating means 1, and the bit corresponding to the time t. The rate (FIG. 4 (b)) is obtained, and this is output to the reproduction control means 3 as the weighting function f (t).

As shown in FIG. 4 (c), the reproduction control means 3 starts time t1 of the moving picture output from the weight extraction means 2.
The bit rates from (= 0) to the end time tE are cumulatively added to obtain the total information bit number S of moving images. Next, the total number of information bits S is divided by the number 4 of display windows, and the respective times at which the cumulative number of bits becomes S / 4, 2S / 4, and 3S / 4
Find t2, t3 and t4. Then, four moving image reproduction means 4
The first moving picture reproducing means is assigned the reproduction from t1 to t2, the second moving picture reproducing means is assigned to the reproduction from t2 to t3, the third moving picture reproducing means is assigned to the reproduction from t3 to t4, , Allocate the reproduction from t4 to tE to the fourth moving image reproducing means.

As shown in FIG. 4D, the reproduction control means 3 has a weighting function f (t) with respect to the reproduction speed of the moving picture reproduced by each moving picture reproducing means 4, as in the first embodiment.
The playback speed of the moving image is controlled to increase in response to the decrease in the value of.

Each of the moving picture reproducing means 4 has a reproduction control means 3
According to the reproduction control information from, the moving image information from the assigned position is taken out from the storage means 1 and reproduced at the designated reproduction speed. The moving images reproduced by each moving image reproducing unit 4 are combined by the image combining unit 6 and displayed on each of the four windows of the display unit 5. Then, the reproduction of each window is automatically repeated as necessary. By repeating automatically in this way, even if the contents of another window are overlooked due to focusing on one window, the overlooked moving image portion can be viewed without any operation.

As described above, in this browsing method, the moving image is divided into a plurality of parts and displayed using a plurality of windows. The moving image reflected in each window is normally reproduced in a scene with a large change, and is reproduced at high speed in a scene with a small change according to the degree of the change. Moreover, since the cumulative bit number of the moving image displayed in each window is set to the same value, the moving image in each window is divided into almost equal parts, so that the moving image can be browsed more efficiently.

The viewer can browse the moving image on the display screen and grasp the contents accurately in a short time.

In this browsing method, for example, a video from one baseball game is displayed in the first window, a video from three times is displayed in the second window, and a video from five times is displayed in the third window. Further, it becomes possible to view the moving images from the 7th time by displaying them in the fourth window.

Also in this browsing method, it is possible to use the amount of color change in the moving image corresponding to the time t as the weighting function. At this time, in order to allocate the reproduction of the moving image to each moving image reproducing means, the weighting factor is integrated from time t0 to tE to obtain the integrated value, and the value is divided into four as in the case of the bit rate to reproduce each moving image. Determine the time allotted to the instrument.

Further, in this embodiment, the moving image is divided so that the integral value of the weighting function is equally divided. However, the moving image time is simply divided into equal parts and each moving image is transmitted to each moving image reproducing means. It is also possible to assign. In this case, since the time division into each window is constant, it is possible to use it by comparing only the last ¼ portion of each of the different images.

The number of moving images to be divided and the number of windows on the display screen may be set to a number other than four.

[0050]

As is apparent from the above description, in the moving image browsing method of the present invention, an important scene is not overlooked.
In addition, it is possible to browse the video in a short time.

The moving image browsing apparatus of the present invention can implement this browsing method.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a moving image browsing apparatus according to a first embodiment,

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a relationship between a weight function and a reproduction speed in the moving image browsing method according to the first embodiment,

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a moving image browsing apparatus according to a second embodiment,

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a relationship among a weighting function, moving image division, and reproduction speed in the moving image browsing method according to the second embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display screen of the moving image browsing apparatus according to the second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 storage means 2 Weight extraction means 3 Reproduction control means 4 Video playback means 5 Display means 6 Image synthesis means

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Claims (7)

(57) [Claims] 1. In a moving image browsing method for reproducing a stored moving image for browsing , a pressure function is used as a weighting function indicating a degree of change of a moving image to be browsed.
Corresponding to the time t of the moving image that has been compressed and stored.
The moving image browsing method is characterized in that the reproduction of the moving image is controlled so as to increase the reproduction speed at time t when the value of the weighting function is small. 2. Playing back accumulated videos for viewing
In the moving image browsing method, as the weighting function indicating the degree of change of the moving image to be browsed, the amount of color change in the moving image corresponding to time t is extracted,
In order to increase the playback speed at time t when the value of the function is small,
A video browsing method characterized by controlling the playback of a video. Wherein dividing said video into a plurality, in parallel each movie is divided regenerated, also according to claim 1, characterized in that to display separately these reproduced image on a display screen
Is the video browsing method described in 2 . 4. The moving image browsing method according to claim 3 , wherein the moving image is divided so that the integral values of the weighting functions are equal in each of the divided moving images. 5. A moving picture browsing apparatus for playing back a stored moving picture for browsing, a storage means for accumulating a moving picture, and a weight for extracting a weighting function indicating the degree of change of the moving picture as a function of time t. Extraction means, reproduction control means for controlling to increase the reproduction speed at time t when the value of the weighting function is small, and moving picture reproduction means for reproducing the moving picture accumulated in the accumulating means under the control of the reproduction controlling means. Equipped with the accumulation hand
The stage stores the compression-encoded video, and the weight extraction
The stage corresponds to the time t of the moving image as the weighting function.
A video browsing device characterized by extracting a bit rate of the video. 6. A moving picture browsing apparatus for playing back a stored moving picture for browsing, a storage means for accumulating the moving picture, and a weight for extracting a weighting function indicating the degree of change of the moving picture to be browsed as a function of time t. Extraction means and reproduction for dividing the moving image into a plurality of parts and controlling each of them to be reproduced, and controlling reproduction of each moving image so as to increase the reproduction speed at time t when the value of the weighting function is small. Control means, a moving picture reproducing means for dividing the moving picture accumulated in the accumulating means into a plurality of pieces under the control of the reproducing control means, and reproducing the respective moving pictures in parallel at a designated reproducing speed; Image synthesizing means for synthesizing a plurality of reproduced images so that they can be displayed on one screen ,
The storage means stores the compression-encoded video,
The weight extraction means uses the time of the moving image as the weighting function.
A moving image browsing apparatus characterized by extracting a bit rate corresponding to t . 7. The moving image browsing apparatus according to claim 6 , wherein the reproduction control unit divides the moving image so that the integrated values of the weighting functions are equal in each of the divided moving images.