I don’t know if they do it that way anymore, but a few years ago I was described how instant replay worked in sports games.
Basically, the play ends, and immediately several technicians begin rewinding the various video streams so they are ready for replay. I always thought that was so inefficient and annoying, and wondered why no one had built a system that could detect when the play actually started, so it could be automatic.
Well, Microsoft’s latest patent application says they have done something similar, only theirs is also forward-looking.
The idea is to patent a method of automatic summary generation that could be used with devices such as a PVR. By scanning the audio of a sporting event, a system could mark hits, excited announcer commentary, or large amounts of cheering as important moments. This could be use to create shortened versions of sporting events that better fit a viewer’s schedule, which Microsoft argues is superior to fast-forwarding through a long recorded game looking for highlights.
The short? Microsoft’s algorithm attempts to discover which parts of a broadcast are “exciting”, from things like the speech and specific sounds, and marks those moments in the metadata. This is a type of automatic summary generation, and allows the viewer to instantly view those moments, skipping everything else the algo deems less interesting.
In a sense, you get the instant replay first, and just skip everything else.
What’s great about this, is if Microsoft builds this technology into Media Center, it could add all sorts of options. Sensitivity would be a huge help. Lets say you want to watch a twenty minute ballgame, set it to emphasize strictly loud cheers and cracks of the bat. You want to watch most of the game, just not the butt-scratching, you set it to be less sensitive and only ignore the silent parts.
Expanding it beyond just sports, what about soap operas? Soaps are notorious for dragging on, so what if you could skip everything but the crying, gunshots and evil music? How about skipping parts of MTV that aren’t loud enough? Or skipping the talking sections of an adult film?
Okay, that last one might be a bit much…
Still, there are excellent applications, and I’m hoping Microsoft turns this into a full-fledged feature in Windows Vista Media Center Edition.
Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.
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