RSSMS Researchers to Present Video Tech
By Ed Oswald | Published June 19, 2006, 4:09 PM
Microsoft researchers plan to unveil new technology this week that would allow for the restoration or segmentation of video digitally. The company says such tools could be used to restore videos that have been damaged, or to change the background of the video.
Details of the processes were disclosed in a paper co-authored by Microsoft Research and the University of Tokyo. The technique is called "motion field transfer," and involves the sampling of similar motion patches from other portions of the video.
In tests, the technology was said to perform better than current methods to repair video. Additionally, it could be used to remove a person or object from video footage, Microsoft Research officials said.
Also to be presented in New York at the 24th Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), one of the world's most significant events for research into computer vision and machine learning, is an algorithm that can be used to separate the foreground from the background in video.
"Using that technique, the background can be replaced with a different one, which could be handy for video conferencing while working from home, for instance," Microsoft explained.
According to Microsoft, nearly 10 percent of the papers to be presented at the conference were authored by the company. 77 percent of the work was done in collaboration with academic institutions.
Algorithms like these already exist in the industry. Otherwise a movie like Matrix would have been impossible to accomplish and many algorithms were developed just for that movie itself, as well as many were developed for LOTR.
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Become educated before posting.
There is a world of difference between computer generated effects, blue screen work, and manipulating existing footage.
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I'm reminded of the "Video Toaster". I saw a demo of it about 15 years ago and it was very impressive. You could combine video footage with special effects, as I recall.
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Woo, I can see this could have lots of potential in future codecs. Just imagine lower bitrates and more blurring(on playback) for the background, and sharper/clearer people or objects in the foreground. This could potentially have great uses for both piracy and IPTV. 3mbit auto quality-adjusting .wmv, anyone?
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"...have great uses for both piracy and IPTV."
I presume you meant "privacy". :)
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