Post-synchronizing an information stream including the replacement of lip objects

• Main Authors: Haisma, Nicoline, Sinke, Johannes Govert, Bergevoet, Bas Arnold Jan, Van Gestel, Henricus Antonius Wilhelmus
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 24.02.2004

The invention relates to a method of post-synchronizing an information stream, which information stream comprises an audio signal and a video signal, the method comprising the step of: performing a translation process to obtain at least one translated audio signal. The invention provides a method for post-synchronizing an information stream. Original lip-objects (lo) are obtained () from a video signal (V). These original lip-objects (lo) are replaced () with new lip-objects (lo*), which correspond to a translated audio signal (A*). Lip-objects (lo) can be obtained from the video signal (V) by using an object-oriented coding technique, e.g. MPEG-4. The coding standard MPEG-4 offers the facilities to manipulate the lip-objects (lo). Several configurations are presented. The new lip-objects (lo*) can be obtained by tracking a further video signal or by using a database with visemes or lip-parameters. The invention is suitable for a communication network, e.g. for video-conferencing. A multi-language information stream comprises a plurality of audio signals (A,A*) and a plurality of lip-objects (lo,lo*) that are each linked to one of the audio signals (A,A*). This gives the possibility to select at the receiver a desired language. An advantage of the invention is that lip-movements better correspond to the translated audio.