Video parsing and browsing using compressed data

Parsing video content is an important first step in the video indexing process. This paper presents algorithms to automate the video parsing task, including partitioning a source video into clips and classifying those clips according to camera operations, using compressed video data. We have developed two algorithms and a hybrid approach to partitioning video data compressed according to the JPEG and MPEG standards. The algorithms utilize both the video content encoded in DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) coefficients and the motion vectors between frames. The hybrid approach integrates the two algorithms and incorporates multi-pass strategies and motion analyses to improve both accuracy and processing speed. Also, we present content-based video browsing tools which utilize the information, particularly about the shot boundaries and key frames, obtained from parsing.