Description

Built specifically for movie enthusiasts, MagicVideo Browser offers a highly intuitive interface that allows its users an easy and effective way of navigating one's computer to browse, search, and play video files. In this application, video files are represented in a truly visual way as opposed to text. This program brings next generation video browsing and playing capabilities to video enthusiasts and professionals.

user interface

Every video file is represented by a filmstrip of thumbnails taken from carefully selected scenes, so in one glance it is clear what kind of movie you're looking at. The general approach is to use pictorial and audio content based methods integrated with artificial intelligence to learn which frames or visualizations would make excellent video summarization thumbnails. Besides showing the contents of the movie, one can also instantly start playing the video file from any scene that is showing in the filmstrip, simply by double-clicking the thumbnail.

filmstrip of the movie 'House of Flying Daggers'

One of our primary features is the open ability for another programmer or scientist to insert custom algorithms for selecting the frames or creating the video visualization. By default, the filmstrip contains snapshots that are taken evenly spaced throughout the movie and are displayed in a linear fashion, as you can see in the filmstrip above. Two alternative frame selection algorithms, motion detection and skin detection, have been included and example filmstrips are shown below.

linear filmstrip using motion detection

linear filmstrip using human detection

Instead of displaying the thumbnails in a linear fashion, an alternative video visualisation algorithm, called mosaic, has also been provided. As you can see in the example filmstrip below, not only is it possible to totally change the layout of the filmstrip, but is it also possible to add lots of features to the filmstrip, such as a button that takes the user to a web page showing details about the movie.

mosaic filmstrip

These provided frame selection and video visualisation algorithms can serve as a starting point for users who are interested in writing their own custom algorithms.

In addition to the aforementioned customizations there is another modifiable aspect of MagicVideoBrowser: the interface. By creating your own theme you can tweak the interface to your own liking. An extra theme, called colorful, has been provided to give the interested user a starting point for theme development.

Future developments

This project is undergoing continuous improvement. Amongst others, we are currently working on the following items:
- smooth video transitions
- more video formats
- good interface to imbd.com and tvtome.com
- playlists
- improved icons and themes (user interface)

Downloads

The latest version is MagicVideoBrowser v0.91alpha

Download Page

It doesn't need to be installed. Just unzip it to any folder and you're ready to go.

Since it's an alpha version, there may be minor bugs and other things that need attention. Of course, we intend to fix or come up with a workaround for most of these things for the following release. So please check back occasionally to see if a new version, new add-ons or any other nice new things are available.

Developed by

The Magicbot Group, which is an international research project between LIACS Media Lab and Helios Technologies.

People

Dr. Michael S. Lew (Project Manager/Program Design)
Bart Thomée (Lead Video Browser Interface Programmer)
Ernst Lindoorn (Video Browser Interface and Frame Grabbing)
Roger Fujii (Video Player, Frame Grabbing, Video Info)