Multimedia Presentation System Research Articles

The machines are coming: future directions in instructional communication research

Education has long involved the use of machines, ranging from calculators, to computers, to multimedia presentation systems, to mobile phones. Yet, the central players in education—teachers and stu...

Context-Aware Services for Mobile Multimedia Application

Abstract Advancements are rapidly being made in mobile computing environments and context-aware multimedia streaming services that are based on information about a user’s context. This work proposes a Context-Aware Embedded Multimedia Presentation System (CEMP) that is based on the context vocabulary ontology to provide a formal explicit description of the multimedia information domain and the formal context process model. The designed context recognition and context representation reasoning mechanism can perform context classification to deliver multimedia services of the required quality. Additionally, the CEMP system includes an adaptation reasoning mechanism that identifies the best adaptation control when the context changes. However, context modification may cause a context conflict problem among multiple adaptation requirements and resource limitations. The CEMP system provides a conflict resolution mechanism that calculates the context’s priority and the context weight to improve context conflict resolution results.

A multimedia presentation system using a 3D gesture interface in museums

Multimedia presentations have become an indispensable feature of museum exhibits in recent years. Advances in technology have increased the relevance of studying digital communication using computational devices. Devices, such as multi-touch screens and cameras, are essential for natural communication, and obvious applications involve entertainment to attract users. This study focused on the use of cameras to support natural interaction of visitors during museum presentations. We first outlined a platform called the "U-Garden," comprising a set of tools to assist application designers in developing movement-based projects that employ camera tracking. We then established a rationale with which to base the design of such presentation tools. This system supplies interactive power to natural interaction based on depth image streams, and provides tracking results to designers for producing numerous fascinating applications that appeal to more diverse interactive imaginations.

CAFSM: A Communicating Adaptive Finite State Machine for Personalised Multimedia Streaming

In this paper we present the design of a multimedia presentation system which permits the dynamic adaptation of the content. The Communicating Adaptive Finite State Machine (CAFSM) presented in this paper, has been used to describe the multimedia streaming and presentation system proposed here. This system is driven by a set of messages that are used for communication and co-ordination among the various component machines which form the system

Multimedia presentation organization and playout management using intelligent agents

This paper presents a model for organization, computation and management of automated multimedia presentations based on active multimedia segments retrieved from a multimedia information system as well as the Web. Existing multimedia presentation system is extended in such a way that its content selection component spans from local data resources to the entire Web by use of intelligent agents which associates related multimedia segments. We describe a multimedia presentation authoring environment in which a new heuristic method is introduced based on the multimedia resources selected and organization operators to apply. This method is used for the construction of a presentation graph representing an organized presentation. Once the presentation graph is constructed, we show how to obtain an event-point representation of the presentation graph. Based on event-point representation, three methods are given for playing out the constructed presentations at the presentation terminal. Presentation environments of the end-users are modeled as (i) without any constraint, (ii) with a single constraint, and (iii) with multiple constraints (one constraint for each type of multimedia segments in the organized presentation). In accordance with these limitations (i.e., without violating any of the end-user specified constraints), three methods play out any organized presentation.

The practical use of Creative Education at Nursery Schools by “The development of The handmade Interface and Multimedia Presentation System”

The practical use of Creative Education at Nursery Schools by “The development of The handmade Interface and Multimedia Presentation System”

Multimedia Presentation for Computer Games and Web 3.0

The HTML standard is an old and text-based format that is designed for narrowband networks. New enhancements to HTML, as well as new formats, are being evaluated. We wish to present a multimedia presentation system, format, and use cases for a wide range of context uses, including Web 3.0 and computer games. The system is compact and enables high performance 2D and 3D graphics. Use cases include in-game heads-up displays, remote playing of games, and 3D authoring for Web 3.0.

TeleMorph: A Fuzzy Logic Approach to Network-Aware Transmoding in Mobile Intelligent Multimedia Presentation Systems

Mobile intelligent multimedia presentation systems are limited by various constraints including mobile network characteristics, mobile device capabilities, and user preferences. Those presentation systems which incorporate remotely stored multimedia rely on the bandwidth which is available during actual content transmission on the connecting mobile network. One approach to deal with this is to transcode content, thus reducing its data rate requirement, although this technique is inherently limited by the lowest acceptable quality of that media element. Alternatively, content can be transmoded to different modalities with lower bandwidth requirements. TeleMorph, a cross-modality adaptation control platform is detailed in this paper. The main premise of TeleMorph is that cross-modality adaptation decisions in mobile presentation systems must occur with primary consideration for bandwidth fluctuations. TeleMorph has been implemented as a network-aware fuzzy inference system that controls cross-modality adaptations between multimodal audio-video, audio-images, and images-text presentations, as well as unimodal audio and text presentations. Initially, a brief introduction to Intelligent Multimedia and Mobile Intelligent Multimedia is given, and related systems discussed. TeleTuras, a tourist information application implemented as a testbed for TeleMorph, is utilized for objective and subjective evaluations through its integration of six disparate test scenarios that incorporate various media types and qualities. Positive results for each evaluation technique, based on specific metrics, are also presented. In addition, future work on TeleMorph is also detailed.

Bandwidth determined transmoding through fuzzy logic in mobile intelligent multimedia presentation systems

Mobile intelligent multimedia presentation systems are subject to various resource constraints including mobile network characteristics, mobile device capabilities and user preferences. Those presentation systems which incorporate remote multimedia content accessed across HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) or RTP (Real Time Transfer Protocol) protocols are particularly reliant on the capabilities of the connecting mobile network (i.e. minimum, average and maximum bandwidth) and in particular on the real-time constraints (i.e. currently available bandwidth, packet loss, bit error rate, latency) which prevail during actual content transmission. One approach to address this is to scale content, thus reducing its datarate requirement, although this technique is inherently limited by the lowest acceptable quality of that media element. Alternatively, content can be converted from one modality to another with a lower resource requirement. TeleMorph, a cross-modality adaptation control platform is detailed here. Initially a brief introduction to Intelligent Multimedia and to Mobile Intelligent Multimedia is given, and key systems discussed. The main premise of TeleMorph is that cross-modality adaptations in mobile presentation systems must be controlled in a manner which gives primary consideration to bandwidth fluctuations as well as the constraints listed above. The current prototype of TeleMorph, which uses a fuzzy inference system to control cross-modality adaptations between video and audio, is described. Particular focus is given to the fuzzy inputs, fuzzy control rules and fuzzy outputs which have been utilised in decision making. TeleTuras, a tourist information application which has been implemented as a testbed for TeleMorph, gives promising evaluation results based on multimedia and bandwidth specific test scenarios. TeleMorph is related to other approaches in the area of Mobile Intelligent Multimedia Presentation Systems. TeleMorph differs from other approaches in that it focuses specifically on the challenges posed by controlling bandwidth determined cross-modality adaptations in a mobile network environment. Future work on TeleMorph's output presentation composition will incorporate images and text also, thus allowing for extended adaptation between video, audio, images and text, as well as multimodal combinations of these media elements.

Multimedia Manual Authoring and Presentation System for Preparedness Learning

Multimedia Manual Authoring and Presentation System for Preparedness Learning

Implementation of a multimedia presentation system for computer-based aphasia therapy

This paper describes the implementation of a multimedia presentation system, 'Multimedia Microworld', designed to support the development of therapy programmes for aphasia. The architecture of this system is presented along with a description of key components, in particular the multimedia generation system. This is novel in its use of an integrated approach to text, speech and graphics realisation using a single multimedia grammar, and the use of a single multimedia lexicon to store text, speech and graphical representations of lexical items, hence making it easy to edit or extend the Microworld vocabulary. The use of a unification grammar to formalise the generation process is also described. In other works (Beveridge, 1998; Beveridge and Crerar, 2002) it was shown that this system could be used to develop intervention programmes that were clinically effective after only a short period of therapy and with no need for trained clinical input. This paper argues that, given these clinical results and the design of the system, we have the basis for providing 'virtual care' to supplement face-to-face sessions, hence extending the reach of clinical services to patients who cannot regularly attend clinics, and empowering patients to self-administer therapy at home whenever they wish.

マルチメディアプレゼンテーションシステムＳＰＯＣを用いた社会問題に関する情報提供とウェブログを用いた情報発信に関する実験報告

User study of a multimedia presentation system called SPOC and Weblog system for risk communication is reported. Understanding availabilities and limitations of SPOC and Weblog system for risk communication is important for planning an implementation of a socio-technical tool. We had an experiment using SPOC and Weblog system for risk communication, and analyzed results obtained from this experiment. From analysis results, we found that (1) SPOC and Weblog are accepted by ordinary people, (2) an important reminder of using Weblog for posting opinions, (3) important reminder of the management of portal site on risk communication. Language: ja

Applying Generic Timing Tests for Distributed Multimedia Software Systems

With recent advances in network technologies and computing power, multimedia systems have become a popular means for information delivery. However, testing of these systems is difficult. Due to incomplete control of their runtime and communication environment, precise temporal properties of multimedia systems are nonreproducible. Traditional software testing, which mainly deals with functional correctness, cannot be directly applied to testing temporal properties. Furthermore, time points are hard to be measured exactly, and in this sense are nondeterministic and nonreproducible. To address this problem, we propose a framework for testing the generic temporal properties of media objects in distributed multimedia software systems (DMSS). The timing properties are based on Allen's basic binary temporal relations between two objects, which can be extended to cover multiple objects. We have developed techniques for test case generation, and test result analysis based on a distributed tester architecture. Test templates are used in test case generation to reduce the possibility of human error, and the entire testing procedure can be automated. A prototype system has been built to test a DEC HPAS multimedia presentation system, which is a multimedia system supporting W3C's SMIL standard. Detailed discussions on practical issues illustrated with a number of actual tests are given. Experimental results have shown that our framework is effective in detecting errors in temporal properties. Furthermore, ways to reduce the test effort have been discussed, and guidelines for coming up with criteria for verdict computation based on the real-time requirements of the applications have been suggested.

The Development of Web-based KTV Services over Campus Broadband Networks

On-demand and interactive media services are one of the key applications in broadband networking. However, most existing solutions are proprietary systems which can only run on limited platforms. In our previous work, we proposed an object-oriented design approach for developing a platform-neutral interactive multimedia presentation system for playing real-time MPEG streams. This paper presents a continuation of the previous work by providing interactivities between viewers and media sources. The resulting system is a Web-based KTV system over broadband networks on campus. The proposed system adheres to the emerging networked multimedia standards, which include controlling the playback of streaming media by RTSP, transmitting MPEG streams over the Internet by RTP, and describing the multimedia session by SDP. To tackle the issues of interoperability and cross-platform, we reuse the components developed in the previous work and appeal to the technology of Java media framework. We demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our design approach and the proposed system via actual experimentation on NKFUST campus.

AutoBrief: an experimental system for the automatic generation of briefings in integrated text and information graphics

This paper describes AutoBrief, an experimental intelligent multimedia presentation system that generates presentations in text and information graphics in the domain of transportation scheduling. Acting as an intelligent assistant, AutoBrief creates a presentation to communicate its analysis of alternative schedules. In addition, the multimedia presentation facilitates data exploration through its complex information visualizations and support for direct manipulation of presentation elements. AutoBrief's research contributions include (1) a design enabling a new human–computer interaction style in which intelligent multimedia presentation objects (textual or graphic) can be used by the audience in direct manipulation operations for data exploration, (2) an application-independent approach to multimedia generation based on the representation of communicative goals suitable for both generation of text and of complex information graphics, and (3) an application-independent approach to intelligent graphic design based upon communicative goals. This retrospective overview paper, aimed at a multidisciplinary audience from the fields of human–computer interaction and natural language generation, presents AutoBrief's design and design rationale.

TELEMORPH: BANDWIDTH-DETERMINED MOBILE MULTIMODAL PRESENTATION

This article presents the initial stages of research at the University of Ulster into a mobile intelligent multimedia presentation system called TeleMorph. TeleMorph aims to dynamically generate multimedia presentations using output modalities that are determined by the bandwidth available on a mobile device’s wireless connection. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this research, TeleTuras, a tourist information guide for the city of Derry, will implement the solution provided by TeleMorph, thus demonstrating its effectiveness. This article does not focus on the multimodal content composition but rather concentrates on the motivation for and issues surrounding such intelligent tourist systems.

An adaptive flow control with the re-transmission policy over the server–proxy–client networking environment

The current server–client 2-stage-based multimedia transmission configuration is to be changed to a server–proxy–client 3-stage-based one when the broadband Internet becomes true. The traffic flow control scheme becomes different for the coming 3-stage-based multimedia transmission. In this paper, we propose a 3-stage traffic flow control scheme for transmitting multimedia data over the server–proxy–client transmission architecture. Based on the layered video streaming technique, the proposed traffic flow control scheme adjusts the presentation quality according to the currently available bandwidth, i.e., dropping/adding some video layers when the networking situation gets congested/smooth. Additionally, the proposed traffic flow control scheme provides layered video stream buffering control to smoothen video playout and adopts a re-transmission technique to reduce the loss possibility of some important video frames. With the proposed traffic flow control scheme, the coming 3-stage multimedia presentation systems can have a better optimization of bandwidth utilization and presentation quality over a broadband Internet environment.

Heritage presentation through interactive storytelling: a new multimedia database approach

AbstractThis paper discusses the rationale for—and describes the methodology of—a new system of interactive storytelling being developed by the Ename Centre for Public Archaeology Heritage Presentation in Belgium. Based on 5 years' experience with multimedia heritage presentation systems, both on‐site and in museum contexts, this approach to the presentation of history and archaeology enables visitors to create their own ‘stories’ as they explore the information contained in a database. The collaborative virtual environment in this case is the visitor's exploration of a historical monument through a series of interactive panoramas and navigation options that allow the visitor to weave archaeological facts and historical information to larger narratives. Because the visitor can follow a number of different trajectories (of time, space and theme) through the monument, and can freely switch trajectories, hundreds of different narratives are possible. The creation of these interactive stories has a larger educational purpose. It has proved to be a uniquely flexible medium for the communication of personalized, interest‐oriented, and user‐driven heritage information for the general public. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PLUS: a probe-loss utilization streaming mechanism for distributed multimedia presentation systems

We present a new flow and congestion control scheme, PLUS (Probe-Loss Utilization Streaming protocol), for distributed multimedia presentation systems. This scheme utilizes probing of the network situation and an effective adjustment mechanism to data loss to support multimedia presentations. The proposed scheme is also designed to scale with increasing number of PLUS-based streaming traffic and to live in harmony with TCP-based traffic. The novelty of the PLUS protocol is that it utilizes the knowledge of its future bottleneck bandwidth in probing the current network situation. This can be achieved by a priori knowledge of the multimedia data before a presentation is requested by a client. Compression schemes like MPEG introduce dependencies on media units. I frames are needed to successfully decode P and B frames, and P frames are needed to decode B frames. A loss of an I or P frame automatically eliminates dependent media units. Our probing scheme increases the successful transmission of critical I and P packets without the overhead of error-correction-schemes. Probing is done using B-frame packets. The advantage is that we use data packets as probe packets. With the PLUS protocol we address the need to avoid congestion rather than react to it. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in utilizing network resources and decreasing loss ratios.

분산 멀티미디어 프리젠테이션 시스템에서 동기화를 위한 피드백 기법

분산 멀티미디어 문서 시스템은 네트워크로 연결된 여러 서버에 있는 미디어들은 검색하여 제시된 시간 관계에 따라 미디어들을 프리젠테이션한다. 효과적인 프리젠테이션을 위해서는 동기화가 지원되어야 하며, 특히, 분산 환경에서의 프리젠테이션은 네트워크 대역폭과 지연시간 등에 의해 영항을 받기 때문에, 그러한 요소들이 고려되어 동기화가 지원되어야 한다. 본 연구에서는 분산 환경에서 프리젠테이션을 효과적으로 수행할 수 있는 분산 멀티미디어 프리젠테이션 시스템을 제안하고, 프리젠테이션을 위해 미디어들이 각 서버로부터 전송될 때 네트워크의 상태와 자원을 검사하여 그에 따른 변화를 서버에 피드백시켜, 서버로부터 전송되는 데이터의 양을 조절함으로서 동기화를 지원하기 위한 기법을 제안한다. 네트워크의 상태 변화를 효과적으로 파악하여 서버로 피드백하기 위해, 버퍼에 경계점을 설정하여 버퍼를 관리하는 기법과 서버로부터 패킷이 전송되는 시간과 클라이언트에 도착하는 시간의 차이를 체크하는 기법을 함께 사용하고 있다. In the distributed multimedia document system, media objects distributed over a computer network are retrieved from their sources and presented to users according to specified temporal relations. For effective presentation, synchronization has to be supported. Furthermore, since the presentation in the distributed environment is influenced by the network bandwidth and delay, they should be considered for synchronization. This paper proposes a distributed multimedia presentation system that performs presentation effectively in the distributed environment. And it also suggests a method to supports synchronization, in which, network situation and resources are monitored when media objects are transferred from servers to a client. Then a feedback message for the change of them is sent to the server so that the server might adjust the data sending rate to control synchronization. To monitor the situation of network, we use two methods together. One is to manage the level of the buffer by setting thresholds on a buffer and the other is to check the difference between the sending time of a packet from the server and the arrival time of the packet to the client.