Automatic thumbnail extraction for DVR based on production technique estimation

The automatic recording function of DVR is a powerful tool for users. However, increase of the stored content makes it difficult to access desired content. To solve this issue, this paper proposes a new method of providing suitable thumbnails of TV programs by detecting important objects from them. Our approach is based on identifying typical shooting and editing techniques, which are estimated from camera motion and visual features density. The proposed method is independent of types of target object and it achieves detection accuracy of about 79%, which outperforms the existing object-dependent approaches. The method is applied to the prototype application on the DVR. It enables the user to find desired content intuitively and access important scenes easily.