Annotation and retrieval of structured video documents

Live Logging and Posterity Logging are the two basic applications for video databases. The former aims at providing effective annotation of video in quasi-real time and supports extraction of meaningful clips from the live stream; the latter provides annotation for later reuse of video material and is the prerequisite for retrieval by content from video digital libraries. Both require that information is adequately structured with interchange format and that annotation is performed, at a great extent, automatically. Video information structure must encompass both low-intermediate level video organization and event relationships that define specific highlights and situations. Analysis of the visual data of the video stream permits to extract hints, identify events and detect highlights. All of this must be supported by a-priori knowledge of the subject and effective reasoning engines capable to capture the inherent semantics of the visual events.