Video summary including a particular person

1. A digital video camera comprising:

an image sensor configured to capture digital images;

a data processing system;

a storage memory; and

a program memory communicatively connected to the data processing system and storing instructions configured to cause the data processing system to implement a method comprising:

designating a reference image, wherein the reference image contains a particular person;

capturing a video sequence of a scene using the image sensor, the video sequence including a time sequence of image frames;

analyzing the captured image frames using a person recognition algorithm to identify a subset of the image frames that contain the particular person;

forming a video summary including fewer than all of the image frames in the captured video sequence, wherein the video summary includes at least part of the identified subset of image frames containing the particular person;

storing the captured video sequence in the storage memory; and

storing the video summary in the storage memory as a separate summary digital video file.

2. The digital video camera system of claim 1 wherein the reference image is captured using the image sensor.

3. The digital video camera system of claim 2 wherein the reference image is selected by a user by activating a user control.

4. The digital video camera system of claim 1 wherein the reference image is downloaded to the digital video camera system.

5. The digital video camera system of claim 1 , wherein the summary digital video file is formed from the image frames of the captured video sequence using a different video processing path than is used to form the digital video file.

6. The digital video camera system of claim 1 , wherein the summary digital video file is at least partially formed concurrently with the digital video file.

7. The digital video camera system of claim 1 wherein the video summary also includes additional image frames besides the identified subset of image frames containing the particular person.

8. The digital video camera system of claim 7 wherein the additional image frames include image frames immediately before or after the image frames in the identified subset of image frames containing the particular person.

9. The digital video camera system of claim 8 wherein the image frames of the video sequence are compressed for storage in the digital video file, and wherein the image frames immediately before or after the image frames in the identified subset of image frames containing the particular person are selected such that the video summary includes groups of image frames that can be extracted from the digital video file without the need to decode the compressed image frames.

10. The digital video camera system of claim 7 wherein the additional image frames include other portions of the captured video sequence that are determined to be important portions.

11. The digital video camera system of claim 10 wherein the important portions of the captured video sequence include key image frames identified using a key-frame extraction algorithm.

12. The digital video camera system of claim 1 wherein the step of analyzing the captured image frames is performed during the capturing of the video sequence.

13. The digital video camera system of claim 1 wherein a plurality of reference images are designated, each reference image containing the particular person.

14. The digital video camera system of claim 1 wherein the video summary is a collection of still images selected from the identified subset of image frames containing the particular person.

15. The digital video camera system of claim 1 , wherein storing the captured video sequence comprises:

processing the captured video sequence using a video processing path to form a digital video file; and

storing the digital video file in the storage memory.

16. A method comprising:

receiving a video sequence including a time sequence of image frames;

receiving a designation with respect to a reference image, wherein the reference image contains a particular person;

using a data processor to automatically analyze the image frames using a person recognition algorithm to identify a subset of the image frames that contain the particular person;

forming a video summary including fewer than all of the image frames in the video sequence, wherein the video summary includes at least part of the identified subset of image frames containing the particular person;

storing the received video sequence in a storage memory; and

storing the video summary in the storage memory as a separate summary digital video file.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the image frames of the video sequence are compressed for storage in the digital video file, and wherein the image frames of the video summary are not compressed for storage in the summary digital video file.

18. The method of claim 16 , wherein the video summary also includes additional image frames that are not contained in the identified subset of image frames.

19. The method of claim 16 , wherein the person recognition algorithm uses at least facial recognition techniques to identify the subset of image frames that contain the particular person.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions executable to cause a processing system to perform functions, the functions comprising:

receiving a video sequence including a time sequence of image frames;

receiving a designation with respect to a reference image, wherein the reference image contains a particular person;

using a data processor of the processing system to automatically analyze the image frames using a person recognition algorithm to identify a subset of the image frames that contain the particular person;

forming a video summary including fewer than all of the image frames in the video sequence, wherein the video summary includes at least part of the identified subset of image frames containing the particular person;

storing the received video sequence in a storage memory as a digital video file; and

storing the video summary in the storage memory as a separate summary digital video file.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 20 , wherein the image frames of the video sequence are compressed for storage in the digital video file, and wherein the image frames of the video summary are not compressed for storage in the summary digital video file.

22. An apparatus comprising a processing system, wherein the processing system comprises a processor and a storage memory, and the processing system is configured to:

receive a video sequence including a time sequence of image frames;

receive a designation with respect to a reference image, wherein the reference image contains a particular person;

automatically analyze, using the processor, the image frames using a person recognition algorithm to identify a subset of the image frames that contain the particular person;

form a video summary including fewer than all of the image frames in the video sequence, wherein the video summary includes at least part of the identified subset of image frames containing the particular person;

store the received video sequence in the storage memory; and

store the video summary in the storage memory as a separate summary digital video file.