METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR LINKING A VIDEO SEGMENT TO ANOTHER SEGMENT OR INFORMATION SOURCE

A given video segment is configured to include links to one or more other video segments or information sources. The given video segment is processed in a video processing system to determine an association between an object, entity, characterization or other feature of the segment and at least one additional information source containing the same feature. The association is then utilized to access information from the additional information source, such that the accessed information can be displayed to a user in conjunction with or in place of the original video segment. A set of associations for the video segment can be stored in a database or other memory of the processing system, or incorporated into the video segment itself, e.g., in a transport stream of the video segment. The additional information source may be, e.g., an additional video segment which includes the designated feature, or a source of audio, text or other information containing the designated feature. The feature may be a video feature extracted from a frame of the video segment, e.g., an identification of a particular face, scene, event or object in the frame, an audio feature such as a music signature extraction, a speaker identification, or a transcript extraction, or a textual feature. The invention allows a user to access information by clicking on or otherwise selecting an object or other feature in a displayed video segment, thereby facilitating the retrieval of information related to that segment.