Photo-centric multimedia authoring enhanced by cross-media indexing

With the increasing use of digital imaging in general consumer applications, there is a great deal of interest in developing new products that increase the value and enjoyment level of viewing digital images in consumers' living rooms. One way to enrich image viewing and sharing is to combine images with voice annotation and music. A picture VCD system (PVCD) was developed for multimedia authoring, centered around and driven by still photos, with an emphasis on composing still images with sound, including music and spoken annotations. We describe the overall system, as well as major enabling technology components, including multimedia authoring, semantic image classification, and cross-media indexing. The finished multimedia bit stream is primarily recorded on DVD or VCD to facilitate enriched enjoyment through a TV set, but can also be shared on a desktop/laptop, via email, or online.