Light Flash/Strobe Suppression

[annishaa88]

There are some videos that have camera flashes in them

for example:
http://assetsprod2-a.akamaihd.net/tag_reuters_com_2017_newsml_ov6kua1nj_reuters_ingest/tag_reuters_com_2017_newsml_ov6kua1nj_reuters_ingest_LOWRES.mp4
this video gives me the following result: ['00:00:09.766', '00:01:23.266', '00:01:35.066']

Can I do something about it?

[Breakthrough]

Hello @annishaa88;

Which detector algorithm are you using in this case, threshold, or content? Currently there is only support to ignore subsequent camera flashes within a certain window (using the minimum-scene-length argument), but the initial flash in the window will still be detected due to the design of the detection algorithms.

That being said, I can see this being a relatively common issue, so after the following release of PySceneDetect (v0.5, where the focus is major changes to the Python API), I will look into adding support for ignoring camera flash in certain videos. There are a few ideas I have that can solve this issue, but they will require some modification to the existing detection algorithms (as well as some additional command-line parameters), but are definitely possible, and should take care of almost all instances of flicker/camera flash.

If you have any suggestions regarding how the implementation should be, by all means, your comments would be most welcome. I will keep you posted as to my progress in this regard, and should hopefully have something for you to test after the next major release. Lastly, thank you very much for providing a sample video - this will be quite handy when the time for testing finally rolls around.

[Breakthrough]

My apologies for the lack of update in regards to progress. Unfortunately my development efforts have been focused on the release of the new v0.5 API/CLI, and not so much on enhancements/features. I hope to have the new version released by the end of the month, at which time I can attempt to tackle this issue.

Just to confirm again @annishaa88, what command were you using to generate the results? The specific detection algorithm/thresholds being used would be very useful information.

[Breakthrough]

Also one idea I just had to solve this is to add the ability to specify an intensity value which if the frame exceeds it, scene detection will be disabled. This might be rather easy to implement, so I will look into squeezing this in for the upcoming release.

[wjs018]

Hi Breakthrough,

I have an example video that I have analyzed with bright flashes that cause erroneous scene breaks being detected. The music video for Growl by EXO is done in one continuous shot, but there are strobe lights that flash in the background. I analyzed the video using the content aware detector using the settings of threshold=30 and min_scene_len=10 and ended up with a total of 83 scenes being detected (link). I would expect at least a couple due to transitions to and from title cards, but the strobes account for the vast majority.

On a side note, I have updated to the newest version, and have been liking it so far. The new API has been working great.

[Breakthrough]

Hi @wjs018;

Thank you very much for the extensive example - very well put together as well, might I add. Also thanks for your comments regarding the API, means a lot to me - if you have any improvements you want to suggest, feel free to bring them forwards.

I read through some of your work, and agree that edge detection is definitely a viable solution to the strobing issue. I'm looking into how I can create a new EdgeDetector class to detect scenes purely using edge detection, or possibly a more robust detector (RobustDetector?) that combines all features of the detectors (including slow fades and what not).

Also left a few suggestions for performance in one of your repos for how you might be able to improve your runtime using PySceneDetect - sorry the documentation is still under works, I need to add more examples of different usage styles, the current api_test.py is geared towards multiple calls to the function from starting/stopping the program entirely.