1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for processing video data, a video server, a gateway server, and a method for managing and processing video data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the conventional video data processing system, a video content of video contents are supplied from a video tape recorder (VTR) on which a moving picture and audio signals output from a video camera are recorded as the video content, are encoded and converted into a video file, and are recorded on a storage medium of a video server. When non-linear editing is carried out, an editing unit accesses the video server of the video data processing system, and reads a video file from the storage medium of the video server. Further, the editing unit carries out non-linear editing of the read video file. For this reason, in order to carry out non-linear editing, the imaged image must be encoded, and must wait until it is recorded on the storage medium of the video server.
Incidentally, in recent years, the storage medium of the video camera has been switched from a tape to a randomly accessible medium such as a hard disk, a semiconductor memory, and the like. When a semiconductor memory or the like is used as the storage medium of the video camera, it becomes possible to directly record a video signal from the video camera on the storage medium as a video file. As a result of this, it becomes unnecessary to subject the video signal from the VTR to encoding processing, and hence it becomes possible to shorten the waiting time up to the starting of the non-linear editing. However, the time for transferring the video file that has been imaged to the storage medium of the video server, and recording the video file is not resolved yet.
It should be noted that in order to shorten the time for transferring the video file to the video server, there is proposed, in Jpn. Pat. Appin. KOKAI Publication No. 2005-51491, a technique wherein an image signal, i.e., video data with low resolution and a small amount of data is transferred, editing work is then carried out, and then only data conforming to the editing content is transferred is proposed. However, although the waiting time is shortened by transferring data of low resolution, the waiting time is not eliminated. Further, using this method poses a problem that it is difficult to confirm the video data at the original image quality at the editing time.