Performance characterization and comparison of video indexing algorithms

Temporal segmentation of video is a necessary first step to indexing digital video for browsing and retrieval. A number of different video temporal segmentation algorithms have been published in the literature. There has been little effort to evaluate and characterize their performance so as to deliver a single (or set of) algorithms that may be used by other researchers for indexing video databases. The present results of evaluating a number of these algorithms and characterizing their performance, specifically with respect to robustness to encoder and bitrate changes. The lessons learnt have relevance to algorithm development and evaluation in general.