Close
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Latest News
    • Networking

    Google Uses Deep Neural Nets to Improve YouTube Thumbnail Quality

    By
    Jaikumar Vijayan
    -
    October 9, 2015
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin
      Google neural network technology

      Google has begun applying knowledge from its work in deep neural network (DNN) technology to improve the quality of thumbnails on YouTube.

      The goal is to see whether recent DNN advances in areas like image and video processing can be applied to improve Google’s automatic YouTube thumbnail generator so people can find videos more easily.

      Weilong Yang and Min-hsuan Tsai, members of Google’s video content analysis team and the YouTube Creator team, respectively, described the company’s efforts involving DNN and thumbnails in a Google Research blog post on Oct. 9.

      The blog offers a look at some of the fascinating work going on behind the scenes at Google to improve the quality of thumbnails—something that people use heavily when viewing video content on YouTube.

      As the researchers note in the blog, judging the quality of videos can be very subjective, especially when choosing frames for inclusion in a thumbnail.

      To teach its automatic thumbnail generator to discern between good quality video frames and those of poor of quality, Google researchers compiled a collection of what they considered high quality thumbnails uploaded by users on YouTube.

      The characteristics they looked for included how well framed the thumbnails were, whether the subjects were in proper focus and whether the thumbnails were properly centered on a specific subject. They then complied a similar collection of poor quality video with a set of common characteristics that made them so. The high quality videos were classified as positive examples while the poor quality videos were classified as negative examples using a binary classification method for visual quality modeling.

      The DNN system that is used to automatically generate the thumbnails was then “trained” to recognize the high quality videos from the poor-quality ones using the data set.

      Using the approach, video that is uploaded to YouTube is sampled at one frame per second and evaluated using the visual quality model. Each frame is then assigned a quality score. The frames with the highest scores are selected and enhanced before being rendered into YouTube thumbnails, Ming and Tsai said.

      “Compared to the previous automatically generated thumbnails, the DNN-powered model is able to select frames with much better quality,” the two researchers noted in the blog post.

      Individuals, who were asked to evaluate the quality of YouTube thumbnails, consistently preferred the ones generated by the DNN system, compared to the previous thumbnailer. In side-by-side comparisons, individuals chose the new thumbnails in 65 percent of the cases.

      The results are important because strong thumbnails help people find content more easily on YouTube, the researchers said. “Better thumbnails lead to more clicks and views for video creators.”

      What was left unsaid is that more views for video creators also means more opportunities for Google to put revenue-generating ads in front of users.

      Google’s work with DNNs is part of a broader Large Scale Deep Learning initiative designed to help the company build more intelligent computing systems. The goal is to equip computers of the future with speech and vision capabilities, language understanding and even user behavior prediction by applying advanced machine-learning approaches to really massive data sets.

      Jaikumar Vijayan
      Vijayan is an award-winning independent journalist and tech content creation specialist covering data security and privacy, business intelligence, big data and data analytics.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Cybersecurity

      Visa’s Michael Jabbara on Cybersecurity and Digital...

      James Maguire - May 17, 2022 0
      I spoke with Michael Jabbara, VP and Global Head of Fraud Services at Visa, about the cybersecurity technology used to ensure the safe transfer...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Yotascale CEO Asim Razzaq on Controlling Multicloud...

      James Maguire - May 5, 2022 0
      Asim Razzaq, CEO of Yotascale, provides guidance on understanding—and containing—the complex cost structure of multicloud computing. Among the topics we covered:  As you survey the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      GoodData CEO Roman Stanek on Business Intelligence...

      James Maguire - May 4, 2022 0
      I spoke with Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData, about business intelligence, data as a service, and the frustration that many executives have with data...
      Read more
      IT Management

      Intuit’s Nhung Ho on AI for the...

      James Maguire - May 13, 2022 0
      I spoke with Nhung Ho, Vice President of AI at Intuit, about adoption of AI in the small and medium-sized business market, and how...
      Read more
      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×