Search

Video retrieval methods, e.g., for visual concept classification, person recognition, and similarity search, are essential to perform fine-grained semantic search in large video archives. However, such retrieval methods often have to be adapted to the users' changing search requirements: which concepts or persons are frequently searched for, what research topics are currently important or will be relevant in the future? In this paper, we present VIVA, a software tool for building content-based video retrieval methods based on deep learning models. VIVA allows non-expert users to conduct visual information retrieval for concepts and persons in video archives and to add new people or concepts to the underlying deep learning models as new requirements arise. For this purpose, VIVA provides a novel semi-automatic data acquisition workflow including a web crawler, image similarity search, as well as review and user feedback components to reduce the time-consuming manual effort for collecting training samples. We present experimental retrieval results using VIVA for four use cases in the context of a historical video collection of the German Broadcasting Archive based on about 34,000 h of television recordings from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). We evaluate the performance of deep learning models built using VIVA for 91 GDR specific concepts and 98 personalities from the former GDR as well as the performance of the image and person similarity search approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German Broadcasting Archive maintains the cultural heritage of radio and television broadcasts of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The uniqueness and importance of the video material fosters a large scientific interest in the video content. In this paper, we present a system for automatic video content analysis and retrieval to facilitate search in historical collections of GDR television recordings. It relies on a distributed, service-oriented architecture and includes video analysis algorithms for shot boundary detection, concept classification, person recognition, text recognition and similarity search. The combination of different search modalities allows users to obtain answers for a wide range of queries, leading to satisfactory results in short time. The performance of the system is evaluated using 2500 h of GDR television recordings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]