Accessing Video Contents through Key Objects over IP

In order to support content-based video database access over the Internet Protocol (IP), achieving the following objectives are important: (i) video query by a representative object (key object) or some statistical characterization of the target contents, (ii) bandwidth-efficient browsing over IP, and (iii) scalable and user-centric video transmission over a heterogeneous and variable-bandwidth network. We present a video object extraction and scalable coding system designed to meet the above objectives. In our system, key objects of meaning to video database users are generated via a human-computer-interaction procedure, and are tracked across frames. Given a key object, an algorithm classifies a subset of its VOPs as key VOPs. This subset forms the basis of a highly bandwidth-efficient base layer for supporting activities such as browsing and refining queries. Over the base layer, a number of enhancement layers can be defined to progressively increase the spatial and temporal resolutions of retrieved video. It is expected that heterogeneous users can subscribe to different numbers of the enhancement layers according to their own conditions, such as access authorization, available connection bandwidth, and quality preference.