Search results

This paper aims to propose a system for the semantic annotation of audio‐visual media objects, which are provided in the documentary domain. It presents the system's architecture, a manual annotation tool, an authoring tool and a search engine for the documentary experts. The paper discusses the merits of a proposed approach of evolving semantic network as the basis for the audio‐visual content description.

The author demonstrates how documentary media can be semantically annotated, and how this information can be used for the retrieval of the documentary media objects. Furthermore, the paper outlines the underlying XML schema‐based content description structures of the proposed system.

Currently, a flexible organization of documentary media content description and the related media data is required. Such an organization requires the adaptable construction in the form of a semantic network. The proposed approach provides semantic structures with the capability to change and grow, allowing an ongoing task‐specific process of inspection and interpretation of source material. The approach also provides technical memory structures (i.e. information nodes), which represent the size, duration, and technical format of the physical audio‐visual material of any media type, such as audio, video and 3D animation.

The proposed approach (architecture) is generic and facilitates the dynamic use of audio‐visual material using links, enabling the connection from multi‐layered information nodes to data on a temporal, spatial and spatial‐temporal level. It enables the semantic connection between information nodes using typed relations, thus structuring the information space on a semantic as well as syntactic level. Since the description of media content holds constant for the associated time interval, the proposed system can handle multiple content descriptions for the same media unit and also handle gaps. The results of this research will be valuable not only for documentary experts but for anyone with a need to manage dynamically audiovisual content in an intelligent way.

Uses Resnik and Stern’s content analysis criteria to examine audio and visual information of in‐cinema slide advertisements within one regional market in Australia to determine whether two types of cues are compatible or reinforce one another. Suggests that there was extensive information framing for a narrow set of information cues. States that there were also significant differences in the types of audio and visual cues, which might result in conflicting information being communicated or information overload.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the preferred communication channels to foster energy conservation behaviour among office building users. Energy demand from the commercial sector in Malaysia is, at 33.2 per cent, the highest after the industry sector, at 45.1 per cent. The country’s progress in actively practising energy conservation is lacking, despite various energy conservation programmes having been launched in recent years. A large amount of energy is wasted by users’ poor energy conservation behaviour. To market voluntary energy conservation behaviour, the delivery of energy conservation messages using the appropriate communication channels remains an important strategy.

This paper involves two-stage data collection. The communication categories associated with a set of channels identified from expert interview serve as the basis for the second stage of empirical data gathering using conjoint analysis. A choice-based conjoint analysis assisted by Sawtooth Software is used to analyse the 525 usable empirical data gathered from a final questionnaire survey among the office building users in Malaysia.

This paper has identified five communication categories associated with a total of 19 channels. The mass media is acknowledged as the most preferred communication channel among office building users in the marketing of energy conservation behaviour, while the least preferred channel to communicate energy conservation information is audio-visual media.

This study contributes to existing literature with a novel case in Malaysia office building by identifying the preferred combination of communication channels in fostering energy conservation behaviour. The findings could benefit the building managers in marketing energy conservation behaviour among office building users to effectively achieve the desired change for sustainable development.

Seeks to demonstrate how, with regard to viewing video on the internet, the delay experienced, whilst the stream is being buffered, can be virtually eradicated.

Documents a scheduled rich site summary (RSS) multimedia prototype which utilizes idle computer time (at night) to subscribe to media RSS channels in order to download audio and video content.

Finds that, a part from involving zero display, the quality of the operation is controlled only by the size of the hard disk not by the capacity of the connection.

The system documented here will serve users at either end of the RSS feed chain.

This paper investigates the interaction effect of audio and video, and studies lip synchronization (lip sync). The study shows a comprehensive evaluation of achievable audio and video quality undertaken based upon different sets of impairments between audio and video, prior to transmission. The tests have been conducted on two different task scenarios, i.e. passive communication and interactive communication (person to person). The research concentrates on quantifying the effects of network impairments (packet loss) on perceived audio and video quality, as well as finding the correlations between audio and video in multimedia applications. The results presented in this paper show the strong interaction dependency between audio and video. It was justified that video has a unique benefit on multimedia quality for its psychological effects. The findings also concluded that the sensory interactions, and the attention given to a particular aspect of performance, are clearly content‐dependent.

This paper aims to provide details of a collaborative campus effort that created a Media Commons at an undergraduate library at a major research university to provide students and faculty opportunities to experiment with emerging technologies, with expanded opportunities to learn of best practices in educational technology.

This is a case study that used a web survey, focus groups, usage statistics, and interviews to determine the needs and best practices for creating and maintaining the Media Commons.

Preliminary results indicate that this program provides value to students and faculty seeking to learn about and use multimedia for coursework and projects. It confirms the gap on campus for places students can go for loanable technology and consultation services in the production and editing of multimedia.

Because the Media Commons just launched there has not had a programmatic evaluation yet to assess the impact of this program. However, based on initial feedback, suggestions for improvements in the program are included.

The rationale, process and efforts described in this paper can be replicated by other institutions that are interested in creating a Media Commons.

Although there are many articles written about Learning Commons and Information Commons, there is not much available that documents the efforts of creating a Media Commons at a library and the rationale for centralizing and freely making available campus multimedia expertise and equipment.

Streaming audio/video contents over the Internet requires large network bandwidth and timely delivery of media data. A streaming session is generally long and also needs a large I/O bandwidth at the streaming server. A streaming server, however, has limited network and I/O bandwidth. For this reason, a streaming server alone cannot scale a streaming service well. An entire audio/video media file often cannot be cached due to intellectual property right concerns of the content owners, security reasons, and also due to its large size. This makes a streaming service hard to scale using conventional proxy servers. Media file compression using variable‐bit‐rate (VBR) encoding is necessary to get constant quality video playback although it produces traffic bursts. Traffic bursts either waste network bandwidth or cause hiccups in the playback. Large network latency and jitter also cause long start‐up delay and unwanted pauses in the playback, respectively. In this paper, we propose a proxy based constant‐bit‐rate (CBR)‐transmission scheme for VBR‐encoded videos and a scalable streaming scheme that uses a CBRtransmission scheme to stream stored videos over the Internet. Our CBR‐streaming scheme allows a server to transmit a VBRencoded video at a constant bit rate, close to its mean encoding bit rate, and deals with the network latency and jitter issues efficiently in order to provide quick and hiccup free playback without caching an entire media file. Our scalable streaming scheme also allows many clients to share a server stream. We use prefix buffers at the proxy to cache the prefixes of popular videos, to minimize the start‐up delay and to enable near mean bit rate streaming from the server as well as from the proxy. We use smoothing buffers at the proxy not only to eliminate jitter and traffic burst effects but also to enable many clients to share the same server stream. We present simulation results to demonstrate the effectiveness of our streaming scheme.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the case of synchronized multimedia presentations.

The proposal is based on SMIL as composition language. Particularly, the paper reuses and customizes the SMIL template used by INRIA on their technical presentations. It also proposes a set of free tools to produce presentation content and design focusing on RealPlayer as delivery client. The integration in this e‐learning platform of multimedia compositions developed following the proposed technique is also presented.

Technological support to learning and teaching has become widespread due to computers and internet ubiquity. Particularly e‐learning platforms permit the any‐time‐and‐any‐place distribution of interactive multimedia learning materials. There are commercial tools available to author this kind of content, usually based on proprietary formats. This option has some drawbacks like license cost and software company dependency. To use open data standards and free software is an alternative without these inconveniences but available authoring tools are commonly less productive. This shortcoming is certainly important to non‐technical authors and it could be solved by open source collaboration.

The paper presents multimedia learning material using open standards and free software.

To examine some of the issues surrounding the integration of auditory features at online stores with reference to social and experiential implications of implementing auditory atmospherics, product presentation techniques and other features to the online context.

A total of 70 online retail, manufacturer and representational web sites are surveyed recording and categorising their use of sound. Discussion is developed on projected directions for the use of sound online, adopting examples like product demonstrations to highlight conceptual and practical differences.

Of the small number of web sites using sound, most are large corporations who employ audio features to enhance the display of products and within multimedia features. Sound is not used consistently for all products on offer or all parts of the store. Discussion centres on potential impact of auditory technologies for social and experiential aspects of shopping online and on how sound may better be used to overcome physical barriers between shoppers, products and the retail environment and to increase the potential for more fulfilling shopping and consuming experiences.

Research is needed to explore consumer perceptions of auditory features and their impact on experience. In particular, the effectiveness of using sound to enhance the presentation of product features online in a personally relevant way to shoppers should be examined.

There is immense scope for improvement in the use of sound in online stores to present products and provide atmospherics. Retailers should treat the online store interface as a tangible point of interaction rather than inferior replication of bricks and mortar stores and focus on implementing features which encourage communication about products and increasing richness of the media employed to represent product attributes.

There has been little research considering the role of sound in enhancing online shopping experiences, with most developments centring on visual aspects of the online store interface. This work provides a cross‐disciplinary basis to guide initial developments in the integration of auditory features in online stores with regard to potential social and experiential implications for users.