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Chopping out boring bits from video of sports events – leaving just the goals and penalties in a soccer match, say – is currently the work of human editors. But a system built by Arnau Raventos and his colleagues at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain, can do this too, creating personalised highlights for the viewer.
It starts by breaking video of a whole match into chunks, guided by cuts and fades when the camera switches between pieces of action. Those chunks are then scanned for importance. Rising noise levels and referee whistle blows tend to indicate goals, and increased movement as players jostle near the goal is a good sign of a penalty or corner kick, for example.
Replays also indicate things worth highlighting. The system searches for telltale logos that broadcasters flash at the start and end of these. Finally, it uses face recognition to determine when players are in shot, and how many there are (arxiv.org/1411.6496). Once the clips are picked, a viewer can ask the system to generate a 3-minute video just of goals and fouls, for example.
This article appeared in print under the headline "AI knows a great sporting moment when it sees one"