Technology Opportunities

Eliminates rapid fluctuations in exposure and color in smartphone videos

Highlights

• Inexpensive video capturing devices and the increasing popularity of video sharing websites result in undesirable tonal fluctuations in video: minute changes in tonal characteristics, such as exposure, color temperature, brightness and contrast in a sequence of frames which are easily noticeable when the sequence is viewed.
• These fluctuations are typically caused by the camera’s automatic adjustment of its tonal settings while shooting.

Our Innovation

Approach to reducing undesirable tonal fluctuations in video that operates on a continuous video shot by first designating one or more frames as anchors. The entire shot is then tonally aligned with each anchor: for each frame, an adjustment map is computed that indicates how each of its pixels should be modified in order to appear as if it were captured with the tonal settings of the anchor.

Figure: Several frames from a video sequence captured by an iPhone. Top row: the in-camera auto white balance causes significant color fluctuations. Bottom row: tonal stabilization eliminates the rapid fluctuations in exposure and color, and the shot may be white-balanced and tone mapped in a consistent manner.

Key Features

• The adjustment map is efficiently updated between successive frames by taking advantage of temporal video coherence and the global nature of the tonal fluctuations.
• Once a sequence has been aligned, it is possible to generate smooth tonal transitions between anchors and also further control its tonal characteristics in a consistent and principled manner.

Development Milestones

Seeking cooperation for licensing and commercialization.

The Opportunity

• Video streaming is the single fastest-growing application type for mobile users, jumping 92% from June 2010.
• Video overall is more than a third of mobile usage - the average person watches video one out of every three times they turn on their phone.
• Percent of total mobile audience (Age 13+) recording video on their mobile devices: 20.2% in the United States, 26.1% in Europe (Dec. 2010)