Evaluating Performance and Trends in Interactive Video Retrieval: Insights From the 12th VBS Competition

This paper conducts a thorough examination of the 12th Video Browser Showdown (VBS) competition, which is a wellestablished international benchmarking campaign for interactive video search systems. The annual VBS competition has witnessed a steep rise in the popularity of multimodal embeddingbased approaches in interactive video retrieval. The majority of the thirteen systems participating in VBS 2023 utilized a CLIPbased crossmodal search model, allowing the specification of freeform text queries to search visual content. This shared emphasis on joint embedding models contributed to balanced performance across various teams. However, the distinguishing factors of the topperforming teams included the adept combination of multiple models and search modes, along with the capabilities of interactive interfaces to facilitate and refine the search process. Our work provides an overview of the state-of-the-art approaches employed by the participating systems and conducts a thorough analysis of their search logs, which record user interactions and results of their queries for each task. Our comprehensive examination of the VBS competition offers assessments of the effectiveness of the retrieval models employed, the browsing efficiency, and user query patterns. Additionally, it provides valuable insights into the evolving landscape of interactive video retrieval and its future challenges.