Unsupervised object-based detection of dissolves in video sequences

A new method for detecting the dissolve production effect within digital videos is proposed. Possible dissolve candidates are first identified based on the MPEG-7 edge histogram (Day, N. and Martinez, J.M., Proc. ISO/IEC/SC29/WG11 N4325, 2001) differences accumulated across a sampled region of the video. These potential candidates are then classified as a dissolve based on the analysis of tracking interesting objects within the considered video segment. The MPEG-7 descriptors (Day and Martinez, 2001), consisting of the edge histogram, homogenous texture, dominant colors and color structure (196 features in all), are then extracted from corresponding objects in successive frames for the duration of the potential dissolve sequence. The object's features are observed to undergo profound changes during a dissolve effect, while changing very little during other types of gradual transitions (e.g. camera panning and zooming). These object changes are used in classifying the sequence as a dissolve.