By Steven Orpwood

November 2023

 

In our digital age, we've grown accustomed to quickly finding what we need, thanks to indexes in books, track numbers in albums, and search engines for web content. However, there's a significant challenge when it comes to searching for specific images or scenes in home videos or CCTV footage. These visual media lack the built-in structure and reference points that books, albums, and films provide, making it a daunting task to pinpoint a particular moment.

 

Why We Film: Capturing Memories and Identifiable Images

 

Before delving into the solution, it's crucial to understand why we capture video in the first place. The primary reasons are to preserve a moment in time and potentially revisit it later for review. Whether it's footage of a family gathering or surveillance video of a warehouse loading bay, we record videos to document activities and events. Additionally, we might film with the specific intent of identifying images within the footage, such as finding a missing child in a crowded theme park.

 

The Challenge of Unstructured Video

 

The challenge lies in the unstructured nature of video footage. Unlike books or films with known durations and content, video footage can vary greatly in length and lacks fixed reference points. While you might remember specific scenes or dialogues in a movie, this isn't the case with everyday videos. So, the question is, can we make the information within videos searchable and indexable?

 

The Aim dataBelt® Solution

 

Machine learning, and specifically dataBelt®, comes to the rescue with the ability to learn what objects are, making them searchable, and subsequently finding them.

 

If you're looking for an efficient and fast solution, tools like Aim's dataBelt® offer significant value. dataBelt® combines machine learning and data indexing to rapidly locate instances of specific objects or persons in video, voice, and data files and is optimised to complete this action in minutes, not hours or days. If you would like to find out more about Aim and dataBelt® please contact us @info@aimltd.uk.