5. Conclusion

Increased processor capabilities and falling storage costs are making the accumulation of large quantities of digital video not only practical, but also relatively easy. However, storing this vast quantity of data is of little use if users cannot locate content they are interested in. Indexing and browsing digital video effectively requires a variety of technologies. This chapter presented an overview of the existing segmentation and summarization techniques as well as suggestions for future research in developing a composite solution that can adapt to the underlying class of video. When the type of video is known a priori, any number of algorithms can be employed that take advantage of the known characteristics of the video. When the type of video is unknown before analysis, how does one choose the appropriate segmentation and summarization that maximizes performance and user information need. A new method for video analysis is needed that:

Integrate the variety of shot-based segmentation algorithms into an adaptive framework that is sensitive to varying content types.
Integrate and expand on existing methods for video summarization so as to create an adaptive summarization method.

Many techniques have been developed for segmentation and abstraction. Recognizing that there is no single, best solution for each of these problems has led to the ideas in this chapter for integrating the variety of existing algorithms into a common framework, creating a composite solution that is sensitive to the class of content under analysis, the performance of the algorithms on the specific content, and the best combination of the results.

This research can have significant impact on future systems for indexing and browsing of digital video content:

Digital video indexing systems can perform much better if the summarizations provided to the indexing engine are smaller, more salient, and more efficient.
Human browsing of search results will significantly benefit from a better-structured summarization of the video content, allowing choices to be made much faster and with less effort.