A video database system for digital libraries

Abstract

The digital libraries of the future must be able to accommodate multimedia source material as readily as current libraries accommodate text. Our effort to achieve this goal has concentrated on the development of a prototype video library system. We have implemented software tools for parsing the content of video sources, generating index structures, and enabling both focused query retrieval and casual browsing. These tools are being enhanced as we apply them to case studies based on different video sources. Curently, our most active case study is concerned with the management of several hundred hours of stock footage which is available for documentary production.