Entertainment Technology Center Research Articles

Update From the Entertainment Technology Center

Update From the Entertainment Technology Center

Linear Versus Nonlinear Perception

<fig orientation="portrait" position="float" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <graphic orientation="portrait" position="float" xlink:href="david-3265087.tif"/> </fig> Linear thinking about nonlinear concepts. That is one of the skills Yves Bergquist of the Entertainment Technology Center@ the University of California (ETC@USC) predicted would be among the most sought-after in Artificial Intelligence (AI) development. Helping machines learn does not mean teaching them to think differently; instead, humans must adopt new ways of thinking in their daily lives.

An Update from the Entertainment Technology Center at USC

The Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at the University of Southern California’s (USC) School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) is a think tank and research center, funded by major studios and leading technology companies, which brings together senior executives, innovators, thought leaders, and catalysts from the media, entertainment, consumer electronics, technology, and supporting services industries along with the academic resources of USC to explore and act upon topics and issues related to the creation, archiving, distribution, and consumption of entertainment content.

An Update from the Entertainment Technology Center

The Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at the University of Southern California’s (USC) School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) is a think tank and research center, funded by major studios and leading technology companies, which brings together senior executives, innovators, thought leaders, and catalysts from the media, entertainment, consumer electronics, technology, and supporting services industries along with the academic resources of USC to explore and act upon topics and issues related to the creation, archiving, distribution, and consumption of entertainment content.

AI and ML

<fig orientation="portrait" position="float" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <graphic orientation="portrait" position="float" xlink:href="devli-3064082.tif"/> </fig> SMPTE and the Enter-tainment Technology Center [(ETC) etcenter.org] have a long history of working together. One major success is the Intero perable Mastering Format (IMF) and another project that we hope will bear similar success is the Joint ETC Task Force on artificial intelligence (AI) and media. We know that the use of machine learning (ML) techniques in the media space will have an impact. Some of these will be beneficial, such as improved metadata collection and inference, and some will have a negative effect, such as the ability to create the so-called <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">deep fakes</i> that cannot be easily distinguished from genuine material. Other issues will be more difficult to address, particularly the problem of embedded bias in training sets. To understand this, it is worth knowing a little about how ML algorithms work.

Report from the Entertainment Technology Center

The Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at the University of Southern California’s (USC) School of Cinematic Arts, is a think tank and research center funded by major studios and leading technology companies. ETC brings together senior executives, innovators, thought leaders, and catalysts from the media, entertainment, consumer electronics, technology, and services industries along with the academic resources of USC to explore and act upon topics and issues related to the creation, archiving, distribution, and consumption of entertainment content. ETC helps drive collaborative projects among its member companies and engages with next generation consumers to understand the impact of emerging technology on all aspects of the media and entertainment (M&E) industry, especially technology development and implementation, creative process, business models, and future trends.

The Suitcase: Using C4, Semantics and NoSQL for Managing Motion Picture Data

Today’s television and motion picture production workflows make it incredibly challenging to preserve and manage data throughout the production lifecycle. The Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at the University of Southern California addresses this data dilemma through The Suitcase project. The Suitcase is a short film created by Abi Damaris Corbin with a technical test led by the ETC Production in the Cloud Working Group. This paper examines the process of upstream authoritative metadata extraction so that it does not have to be recreated downstream, as well as processes for creating and enhancing metadata further downstream when necessary. This paper discusses how to effectively use the C4 framework—Cinema Content Creation Cloud, semantics, and NoSQL technologies—to manage motion picture content by tagging metadata so that it can be leveraged for software applications.

Can E-Gaming Be Useful for Achieving Recommended Levels of Moderate- to Vigorous-Intensity Physical Activity in Inner-City Children?

The purpose of this study was to compare the energy expenditure of a tailored, interactive genre of e-gaming ("Winds of Orbis: An Active Adventure"; Entertainment Technology Center, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA) ( www.activeadventuregame.com ) with that of a tethered videogame ("Dance Dance Revolution" [DDR]; Konami Digital Entertainment, El Segundo, CA) and with traditional physical education (PE) activities in meeting recommended levels of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA). Schoolchildren (n=104) in grades 3-8 from inner-city Washington, DC completed three randomly ordered 20-minute bouts of DDR, "Orbis," and PE. Energy expenditure was measured using accelerometry. Overall, energy expenditure was significantly greater from PE compared with "Orbis" and DDR (P<0.01). Among girls (n=58) and children with obesity (n=49), however, energy expenditure from "Orbis" and PE was similar, and both resulted in higher energy expenditure compared with DDR (P<0.01). After adjustment for sex, grade, and body mass index, we observed that among children in grades 3-5 energy expenditure from all three activities was sufficient to meet recommended intensity criteria for vigorous activity (>6 metabolic equivalents). Among children in grades 6-8, however, these vigorous-intensity criteria were met only by boys and only with PE activities. In the school setting, traditional PE activities continue to work well for some children in meeting MVPA recommendations. Among special subgroups, however, e-gaming may provide a useful supplement to PE in increasing activity levels during the school day and beyond.

Interview with David Wertheimer

David Wertheimer is Executive Director of the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at the University of Southern California. Prior to his ETC post, he was the executive director of USC's Institute for Creative Technologies. His experience also includes terms as the president of the Digital Entertainment division of Paramount Pictures; founder and CEO of WireBreak Entertainment; and technology and business management positions at Oracle and NeXT. In the video interview, you will hear answers to the following questions: 1. What are the technological and sociological implications of providing content to consumers who desire it at any time and any place? 2. You once said that "The world of interactivity and entertainment is converging." Would you like to elaborate on your statement? 3. Can you tell us about the state-of-the-art Digital Content Center that you are building at the ETC? 4. What is the biggest challenge for the ETC today and what is your grand vision for the future of the ETC? 5. What are some of the current activities at the ETC?

Interview with David Wertheimer

David Wertheimer is Executive Director of the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at the University of Southern California. Prior to his ETC post, he was the executive director of USC's Institute for Creative Technologies. His experience also includes terms as the president of the Digital Entertainment division of Paramount Pictures; founder and CEO of WireBreak Entertainment; and technology and business management positions at Oracle and NeXT. In the video interview, you will hear answers to the following questions:

Interview with Tina Blaine

Tina Blaine is a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center. Tina uses science and technology to explore new interface designs for gaming, collective music-making and interactive media with her graduate students. As a musical interactivist at Interval Research, she led a development team in the creation of a collaborative audiovisual instrument known as the Jam-O-Drum, now on permanent exhibit at the Experience Music Project in Seattle. An energetic composer and multiinstrumentalist, she has written music for NPR, video games, TV and documentary soundtracks. In the video interview, you will hear Tina's answers to the following questions:

Interview with Tina Blaine

Tina Blaine is a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center. Tina uses science and technology to explore new interface designs for gaming, collective music-making and interactive media with her graduate students. As a musical interactivist at Interval Research, she led a development team in the creation of a collaborative audiovisual instrument known as the Jam-O-Drum, now on permanent exhibit at the Experience Music Project in Seattle. An energetic composer and multiinstrumentalist, she has written music for NPR, video games, TV and documentary soundtracks. In the video interview, you will hear Tina's answers to the following questions: 1. What do you think about future human-computer interface in interactive media? 2. What do you think about using artificial intelligence to create new music or to mimic famous composers? 3. How do you see the future of music in 10 years? More new instruments, new sounds, or something entirely different? 4. If you have a 10-million dollar research fund to do anything you like, what would you do? 5. You are very much involved in volunteer service and community outreach, what is your favorite volunteer work?

Heart of a new machine [robot that can express different moods

Graduate students at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center has designed a robot that features five different moods. Called Quasi, the 76-centimeter tall robot is a captivating character that goes beyond the standard animatronic amusement park figures. Quasi can express happiness, sadness, anger, confusion, and embarassment. These moods are conveyed most obviously by the color of its light-emitting-diode eyes and antennae. The moods are controlled by a finite state machine, a software-based behavioral model that triggers certain actions when specific conditions are met.

A word from the editor

A word from the editor

A word from the editor

Welcome to the fourth issue of the ACM Computers in Entertainment magazine! In this exciting new issue, we publish six interesting papers on entertainment technologies from authors around the world including Greece, Malaysia, Portugal, UK, and USA. Two papers were selected for revision from four best winning papers at the ACM SIGCHI 2004 International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. We will present the other two winning papers in the next issue. Three of the papers in this issue have accompanying videos for lively demonstrations. To get started, the Interviews column features video interviews with our distinguished advisory board members Cynthia Breazeal and Karlheinz Brandenburg. Prof. Dr. Breazeal, Director of the Robotic Life Group at the MIT Media Lab, talks about her sociable robot Kismet, her role in Steven Spielberg's movie "Artificial Intelligence: AI," and the future of robotics. Prof. Dr. Brandenburg, inventor of the MP3 music format, shares with us the history of MP3, the new spatial audio technology called Wave Field Synthesis, and other fascinating research at the Fraunhofer Institute. In the Sociable Robot section, Andrew G. Brooks et al. from the MIT Media Lab's Robotic Life Group describe socially interactive game playing with personal robots for human entertainment, a step towards lifelike, expressive, and autonomous humanoid robot. Be sure to watch the fascinating human-robot interaction in their 5-minute demonstration video. In the Wireless Game and Game Story section, Josephine Reid et al. from the HP Labs in UK document on paper and a 2-minute video about a week long public field trial of a spontaneous, wireless networked musical game in a cafe setting. Luis Romero et al. from New University of Lisbon and Viana do Castelo Polytechnic Institute in Portugal describe gaming and storytelling activities in a mixed environment that integrates the real and virtual worlds. In the 3D Animation and iTV section, Belinda Teoh Soo Phing et al. from Multimedia University in Malaysia discuss the potential of adapting moveable pop-up technique as a continuity element for the entire flow in 3D animation, and present a 3-minute video demonstration. Konstantinos Chorianopoulos et al. from Athens University of Economics and Business in Greece explore the use of an animated character and dynamic insertion of advertising for an interactive music television channel. In the Synopsis - Book column, David Freeman talks about the art and craft of Emotioneering - and presents 32 categories of creating emotion in games. Before diving into the exciting content, I would like to take a moment to congratulate two of our distinguished editorial board advisors: (1) Bob Lambert has been named in July 2004 the senior vice president for worldwide media technology and development at the Walt Disney Company. Mr. Lambert also serves on the boards of USC and the American Film Institute, and has served as an advisor to the National Academy of Science, the USC Entertainment Technology Center, and the US FIRST program. (2) Masa Inakage, a member of the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee, along with other committee members, conference chair Dena Slothower, and ACM volunteers, had done an outstanding job in bringing 27,825 professionals from nearly 90 countries to the annual conference and exhibition of SIGGRAPH 2004 in August. It exceeded all expectations with an overall 14 percent increase in attendance over last year. Finally, ACM Computers in Entertainment is a proud co-sponsor of the University Project at Digital Hollywood Fall 2004 in September. Our distinguished editorial board advisors Adrian Cheok, Charles Swartz, Glenda Revelle, and Richard Weinberg will join Athomas Goldberg, Celia Pearce, and Dana Plautz on the panel "Research, Development and Investment in Entertainment Technologies and Media Studies Innovation: From the University to Industry Application." We will bring you the details in the next issue of ACM Computers in Entertainment. Please enjoy reading this online magazine and spread the words that we are planning for a special issue on Digital Cinema. Thank you very much for your continuing support!

Shaping an entertaining future at Carnegie Mellon

Carnegie Mellon established the Entertainment Technology Center. The ETC uses interdisciplinary cooperation to advance the boundaries of digital technology. The ETC strives to prepare students for careers involving digital media in the entertainment industry. The idea is to prepare students for real-world time constraints and deadlines. The ETC's interactive animatronics initiative seeks to create conversationally interactive, emotionally compelling animatronic figures. The ETC's project-oriented approach to teaching innovation has been well received by entertainment companies.

A Review of Survey Responses to High Quality Digital and Film Presentations

On May 18 and 19, 2001, the Hollywood section held its annual Spring Seminar in cooperation with USC Cinema's Entertainment Technology Center. The theme was “The Cinema—Now and the Future.” Because the event was held in the Entertainment Technology Center's Digital Cinema Laboratory, it was possible to show a wide variety of high-quality presentations, both 35mm film and digital material, to an industry audience of more than 400. Following the Seminar, an online survey was posted and its link sent to every attendee's e-mail address. Out of 375 paid attendees, 110 responded over the next month. The responses provide insights into how industry professionals view the strengths and limitations of cinema digital in its current form compared with film display at its best. Overall, they rated film as superior, but digital performed well, especially considering the immaturity of its technology compared with that of film.

Entertainment Technology Center

There's no doubt that the world of digital entertainment is here to stay. In addition, ongoing advances in computer technology will continue to expand not only the graphics palate of the medium but also the realm of imaginative, virtual experiences being offered to consumers. At Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center, we focus on creating new entertainment technologies, venues and experiences that take advantage of developments in technical fields like computer science, while seeking ways to include the traditional dynamics of fine arts such as drama, story-telling, film and theater. As educators of entertainment technology, we're continually asked to define our discipline. Our mission statement is "to provide leadership in education and research that combines technology and the arts to create new processes, tools and vision for story-telling and entertainment".