Intelligent devices for enhanced sports viewing
To date, research has primarily concentrated on implementing very specific video content description algorithms in video database search applications. Most of the stored video content in these databases lacks indexing, analysis and associated metadata. What is more, the majority of research on content structuring has focused on football at the expense of other sports or genres. To address this need, the EU-funded 'Video content description system' (VISION) project developed a system that can extract video features and use them for structuring and indexing live sports broadcasts. It is designed for use beyond sports. Project partners designed and then validated a hardware device with underlying architecture that is both flexible and configurable. The system can be embedded into current set-top boxes and video recording devices. The team developed algorithms for the hardware platform that analyse raw audio, video and images specifically for sports held indoors or outdoors involving two teams. In addition to football, this includes team sports such as rugby, cricket, basketball and baseball. Unlike previous algorithms, computational operations for the system are performed without the use of computers. It also takes advantage of free Internet libraries. Thanks to VISION, sports enthusiasts will now have devices at their disposal to better access content. Viewers can generate an automatic game summary if tuning in late or watch highlights while a match is being played.
Keywords
Sports viewing, TV set-top boxes, sporting events, video content description, content structuring
