Method and apparatus for compressing a sequence of frames having at least two media components

摘要

An apparatus and method for compressing a sequence of frames (from 1) having at least first and second information-bearing media components selects a plurality of representative frames (by 4) from among the sequence of frames. The representative frames represent information contained in the first information-bearing media component. A correspondence is then formed between each of the representative frames and one of a plurality of segments of the second information-bearing media component. The representative frames, the plurality of segments of the second information-bearing media component (from 5) and the correspondence between them are recorded (in 9 or 10) for subsequent retrieval. If the first information-bearing media component is a video component composed of a plurality of scenes, a representative frame may be selected from each scene. Additionally, if the second information-bearing media component is a closed-caption component, a printed rendition of the representative frames and the closed-caption component may be provided (by 12). The printed rendition constitutes a pictorial transcript in which each representative frame is printed with a caption containing the closed-caption text associated therewith. <IMAGE>