Digital Video: Just Another Data Stream?

Abstract

Technology is making huge progress in allowing us to generate data of all kinds, and the volume of such data which we routinely generate is exceeded only by its variety and its diversity. For certain kinds of data we can manage it very efficiently (web searching and enterprise database lookup are good examples of this), but for most of the data we generate we are not good at all about managing it effectively. As an example, video information in digital format can be either generated or captured, very easily in huge quantities. It can also be compressed, stored, transmitted and played back on devices which range from large-format displays to portable handhelds, and we now take all of this for granted. What we cannot yet do with video, however, is effectively manage it based on its actual content. In this presentation I will summarise where we are in terms of being able to automatically analyse and index, and then provide searching, summarisation, browsing and linking within large collections of video libraries and I will outline what I see as the current challenges to the field.