Video retrieval using an EDL-based timeline

Abstract

In creating a new multimedia asset, specially a video, some decisions have to be made: a selection of the portions of the original footage that might be included, how to order them, how to crop each portion in order to reach the desired length and how to stitch all these pieces together. All these decisions constitute the core of the so called Editing Decision List, where all these actions are stored for the record. In this paper the authors show that the list of editing decisions can be used as the basis for indexing and retrieving videos from a database; more specifically, we show that a timeline created from the EDL is a valid and sufficient descriptor for identifying a video among a huge population, assuming a minimum duration. We demonstrate, as well, that this descriptor has a very good behavior in terms of robustness given different bit and frame rates, sizes and re-encoding processes. Indexing and retrieval using this descriptor is tested in a IPMP application for TV broadcasting. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.