STIMO: STIll and MOving video storyboard for the web scenario

In the current Web scenario a video browsing tool that produces on-the-fly storyboards is more and more a need. Video summary techniques can be helpful but, due to their long processing time, they are usually unsuitable for on-the-fly usage. Therefore, it is common to produce storyboards in advance, penalizing users customization. The lack of customization is more and more critical, as users have different demands and might access the Web with several different networking and device technologies. In this paper we propose STIMO, a summarization technique designed to produce on-the-fly video storyboards. STIMO produces still and moving storyboards and allows advanced users customization (e.g., users can select the storyboard length and the maximum time they are willing to wait to get the storyboard). STIMO is based on a fast clustering algorithm that selects the most representative video contents using HSV frame color distribution. Experimental results show that STIMO produces storyboards with good quality and in a time that makes on-the-fly usage possible.