Improving video processing performance using temporal reasoning

In this paper, we present a system, called MediABS, for extracting key frames in a video segment. First we will describe the overall architecture of the system and we will show how our system can handle multiple video formats with a single video-processing module. Then we will present a new algorithm, based on color histograms. The algorithm exploits the temporal characteristic of the visual information and provides techniques for avoiding false cuts and eliminating the possibility of missing true cuts. A discussion, along with some results, will be provided to show the merits of our algorithm compared to existing related algorithms. Finally we will discuss the performance (in terms of processing time and accuracy) obtained by our system in extracting the key frames from a video segment. This work is part of the Mobile Agents Alliance project involving University of Ottawa, National Research Council (NRC) and Mitel Corporation.