def musicThumbnailing(x, fs, short_term_size=1.0, short_term_step=0.5, 
                      thumb_size=10.0, limit_1 = 0, limit_2 = 1):
    '''
    This function detects instances of the most representative part of a
    music recording, also called "music thumbnails".
    A technique similar to the one proposed in [1], however a wider set of
    audio features is used instead of chroma features.
    In particular the following steps are followed:
     - Extract short-term audio features. Typical short-term window size: 1 second
     - Compute the self-silimarity matrix, i.e. all pairwise similarities between feature vectors
     - Apply a diagonal mask is as a moving average filter on the values of the self-similarty matrix.
       The size of the mask is equal to the desirable thumbnail length.
     - Find the position of the maximum value of the new (filtered) self-similarity matrix.
       The audio segments that correspond to the diagonial around that position are the selected thumbnails
    

    ARGUMENTS:
     - x:            input signal
     - fs:            sampling frequency
     - short_term_size:     window size (in seconds)
     - short_term_step:    window step (in seconds)
     - thumb_size:    desider thumbnail size (in seconds)
    
    RETURNS:
     - A1:            beginning of 1st thumbnail (in seconds)
     - A2:            ending of 1st thumbnail (in seconds)
     - B1:            beginning of 2nd thumbnail (in seconds)
     - B2:            ending of 2nd thumbnail (in seconds)

    USAGE EXAMPLE:
       import audioFeatureExtraction as aF
     [fs, x] = basicIO.readAudioFile(input_file)
     [A1, A2, B1, B2] = musicThumbnailing(x, fs)

    [1] Bartsch, M. A., & Wakefield, G. H. (2005). Audio thumbnailing
    of popular music using chroma-based representations.
    Multimedia, IEEE Transactions on, 7(1), 96-104.
    '''
    x = audioBasicIO.stereo2mono(x);
    # feature extraction:
    st_feats, _ = aF.stFeatureExtraction(x, fs, fs * short_term_size, 
                                         fs * short_term_step)

    # self-similarity matrix
    S = selfSimilarityMatrix(st_feats)

    # moving filter:
    M = int(round(thumb_size / short_term_step))
    B = numpy.eye(M,M)
    S = scipy.signal.convolve2d(S, B, 'valid')


    # post-processing (remove main diagonal elements)
    min_sm = numpy.min(S)
    for i in range(S.shape[0]):
        for j in range(S.shape[1]):
            if abs(i-j) < 5.0 / short_term_step or i > j:
                S[i,j] = min_sm;

    # find max position:
    S[0:int(limit_1 * S.shape[0]), :] = min_sm
    S[:, 0:int(limit_1 * S.shape[0])] = min_sm
    S[int(limit_2 * S.shape[0])::, :] = min_sm
    S[:, int(limit_2 * S.shape[0])::] = min_sm

    maxVal = numpy.max(S)        
    [I, J] = numpy.unravel_index(S.argmax(), S.shape)
    #plt.imshow(S)
    #plt.show()
    # expand:
    i1 = I
    i2 = I
    j1 = J
    j2 = J

    while i2-i1<M: 
        if i1 <=0 or j1<=0 or i2 >= S.shape[0]-2 or j2 >= S.shape[1]-2:
            break
        if S[i1-1, j1-1] > S[i2 + 1, j2 + 1]:
            i1 -= 1
            j1 -= 1            
        else:            
            i2 += 1
            j2 += 1            

    return short_term_step * i1, short_term_step * i2, \
           short_term_step * j1, short_term_step * j2, S
This function detects instances of the most representative part of a
    music recording, also called "music thumbnails".
    A technique similar to the one proposed in [1], however a wider set of
    audio features is used instead of chroma features.
    In particular the following steps are followed:
     - Extract short-term audio features. Typical short-term window size: 1 second
     - Compute the self-silimarity matrix, i.e. all pairwise similarities between feature vectors
     - Apply a diagonal mask is as a moving average filter on the values of the self-similarty matrix.
       The size of the mask is equal to the desirable thumbnail length.
     - Find the position of the maximum value of the new (filtered) self-similarity matrix.
       The audio segments that correspond to the diagonial around that position are the selected thumbnails
    

    ARGUMENTS:
     - x:            input signal
     - fs:            sampling frequency
     - short_term_size:     window size (in seconds)
     - short_term_step:    window step (in seconds)
     - thumb_size:    desider thumbnail size (in seconds)
    
    RETURNS:
     - A1:            beginning of 1st thumbnail (in seconds)
     - A2:            ending of 1st thumbnail (in seconds)
     - B1:            beginning of 2nd thumbnail (in seconds)
     - B2:            ending of 2nd thumbnail (in seconds)

    USAGE EXAMPLE:
       import audioFeatureExtraction as aF
     [fs, x] = basicIO.readAudioFile(input_file)
     [A1, A2, B1, B2] = musicThumbnailing(x, fs)

    [1] Bartsch, M. A., & Wakefield, G. H. (2005). Audio thumbnailing
    of popular music using chroma-based representations.
    Multimedia, IEEE Transactions on, 7(1), 96-104.