THEFT-RESISTANT VIDEO BROWSING USING FILTERED VERSIONS OF COMPRESSED SEQUENCES

摘要

A method and apparatus for providing theft-resistant video browsing includes storing video programmed material in a compressed motion JPEG or MPEG format (30), for permitting a user to select a video program from the stored video material for browsing (24), whereby before presentation of the selected video program to the user, the video program is reconstructed into a lowpass and/or highpass filtered version (28) thereof, to reduce the quality of the video program presented to the user for browsing to a level sufficient for permitting the user to determine whether to purchase or rent the video material, while insuring that the level of quality is insufficient for permitting the user to make a viable copy of the selected video program, or to satisfy a need to see the content of the selected video program. The video browsing system (20) and method further provides for a user to obtain progressively higher quality for the video program to be browsed by paying aggressively high fees (26) for such browsing.