An automatic cameraman in a lecture recording system

Abstract

We describe the design and implementation of an automatic cameraman for lecture recording. A major problem with traditional lecture recordings is that they tend to be boring for the students, especially if only the slides and the audio of the lecturer are pre-sented. In a first step, we determine the tasks a real cameraman would have, in particular with respect to liveliness of the video. We then adapt these tasks to a computer system and show in detail how they can be implemented. In a second step, we describe how our algorithms support the virtual director system into which the automatic cameraman is integrated. We conclude that lecture re-cordings can be much more lively and interesting using our approach.