Enhancing synote with quizzes, polls and analytics

Videos combined with quizzes and polls are used for educational purposes in many settings, including Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and university lectures. For the authors of these resources, this often involves splitting videos up into sections with a poll or quiz after each section to gauge understanding. This approach requires the author to have video editing skills, and can be time-consuming. It would be useful if quizzes could be created and included directly into videos without the need for video editing. The resulting media could be analysed to discover how best to present information for learning. This paper describes the development of three main tools to Enhance Synote, the web based video annotation System. The Quiz Authoring Tool allows users to specify: sets of questions and polls to appear in the video, the time at which question sets should appear, and actions to be taken when questions are answered (e.g. skip back in the video if the answer is incorrect). The Questions Overlay library to allow quizzes and polls to be overlaid on Web videos in any of the main video formats, playable in the major browsers on different platforms. The Video and Quiz Analytics records and displays metrics of user behavio

Towards the creation of an annotation system and a digital archive platform for contemporary dance

Tese de mestrado. Multimédia. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

Deliverable D5.1 LinkedTV Platform and Architecture

The objective of Linked TV is the integration of hyperlinks in videos to open up new possibilities for an interactive, seamless usage of video on the Web. LinkedTV provides a platform for the automatic identification of media fragments, their metadata annotations and connection with the Linked Open Data Cloud, which enables to develop applications for the search for objects, persons or events in videos and retrieval of more detailed related information. The objective of D5.1 is the design of the platform architecture for the server and client side based on the requirements derived from the scenarios defined in WP6 and technical needs from WPs 1-4. The document defines workflows, components, data structures and tools. Flexible interfaces and an efficient communications infrastructure allow for a seamless deployment of the system in heterogeneous, distributed environments. The resulting design builds the basis for the distributed development of all components in WP1-4 and their integration into a platform enabling for the efficient development of Hypervideo applications

Annotierte interaktive nichtlineare Videos - Software Suite, Download- und Cache-Management

Modern Web technology makes the dream of fully interactive and enriched video come true. Nowadays it is possible to organize videos in a non-linear way playing in a sequence unknown in advance. Furthermore, additional information can be added to the video, ranging from short descriptions to animated images and further videos. This affords an easy and efficient to use authoring tool which is capable of the management of the single media objects, as well as a clear arrangement of the links between the parts. Tools of this kind can be found rarely and do mostly not provide the full range of needed functions. While providing an interactive experience to the viewer in the Web player, parallel plot sequences and additional information lead to an increased download volume. This may cause pauses during playback while elements have to be downloaded which are displayed with the video. A good quality of experience for these videos with small waiting times and a playback without interruptions is desired. This work presents the SIVA Suite to create the previously described annotated interactive non-linear videos. We propose a video model for interactivity, non-linearity, and annotations, which is implemented in an XML format, an authoring tool, and a player. Video is the main medium, whereby different scenes are linked to a scene graph. Time controlled additional content called annotations, like text, images, audio files, or videos, is added to the scenes. The user is able to navigate in the scene graph by selecting a button at a button panel. Furthermore, other navigational elements like a table of contents or a keyword search are provided. Besides the SIVA Suite, this thesis presents algorithms and strategies for download and cache management to provide a good quality of experience while watching the annotated interactive non-linear videos. Therefor, we implemented a standard-independent player framework. Integrated into a simulation environment, the framework allows to evaluate algorithms and strategies for the calculation of start-up times, and the selection of elements to pre-fetch into and delete from the cache. Their interaction during the playback of non-linear video contents can be analyzed. The algorithms and strategies can be used to minimize interruptions in the video flow after user interactions. Our extensive evaluation showed that our techniques result in faster start-up times and lesser interruptions in the video flow than those of other players. Knowledge of the structure of an interactive non-linear video can be used to minimize the start-up time at the beginning of a video while minimizing an increase in the overall download volume.Moderne Web-Technologien lassen den Traum von voll interaktiven und bereicherten Videos wahr werden. Heutzutage ist es möglich, Videos in nicht-linearer Art und Weise zu organisieren, welche dann in einer vorher unbekannten Reihenfolge abgespielt werden können. Weiterhin können den Videos Zusatzinformationen in Form von kurzen Beschreibungen über animierte Bilder bis hin zu weiteren Videos hinzugefügt werden. Dies erfordert ein einfach und effizient zu bedienendes Autorenwerkzeug, das in der Lage ist, sowohl einzelne Medien-Objekte zu verwalten, als auch die Verbindungen zwischen den einzelnen Teilen klar darzustellen. Tools dieser Art sind selten und bieten meist nicht den vollen benötigten Funktionsumfang. Während dem Betrachter dieses interaktive Erlebnis im Web Player zur Verfügung gestellt wird, führen parallele Handlungsstränge und zusätzliche Inhalte zu einem erhöhten Download-Volumen. Dies kann zu Pausen während der Wiedergabe führen, in denen Elemente vom Server geladen werden müssen, welche mit dem Video angezeigt werden sollen. Ein gutes Benutzungserlebnis für solche Videos kann durch geringe Wartezeiten und eine unterbrechungsfreie Wiedergabe erreicht werden. Diese Arbeit stellt die SIVA Suite vor, mit der die zuvor beschriebenen annotierten interaktiven nicht-linearen Videos erstellt werden können. Wir bilden Interaktivität, Nichtlinearität und Annotationen in einem Video-Model ab. Dieses wird in unserem XML-Format, Autorentool und Player umgesetzt. Als Leitmedium werden hierbei Videos verwendet, welche aufgeteilt in Szenen zu einer Graphstruktur zusammengefügt werden können. Zeitlich gesteuerte zusätzliche Inhalte, sogenannte Annotationen, wie Texte, Bilder, Audio-Dateien und Videos, werden den Szenen hinzugefügt. Der Betrachter kann im Szenengraph navigieren, indem er in einem bereitgestellten Button-Panel eine Nachfolgeszene auswählt. Andere Navigationselemente sind ein Inhaltsverzeichnis sowie eine Suchfunktion. Neben der SIVA Suite beschreibt diese Arbeit Algorithmen und Strategien für Download und Cache Management, um eine gute Nutzungserfahrung während der Betrachtung der annotierten interaktiven nicht-linearen Videos zu bieten. Ein Webstandard-unabhängiges Playerframework erlaubt es, das Zusammenspiel von Algorithmen und Strategien zu evaluieren, welche für die Berechnung der Start-Zeitpunkte für die Wiedergabe, sowie die Auswahl von vorauszuladenden sowie zu löschenden Elemente verwendet werden. Ziel ist es, Unterbrechungen zu minimieren, wenn der Ablauf des Videos durch Benutzerinteraktion beeinflusst wird. Unsere umfassende Evaluation zeigte, dass es möglich ist, kürzere Startup-Zeiten und weniger Unterbrechungen mit unseren Strategien zu erreichen, als bei der Verwendung der Strategien anderer Player. Die Kenntnis der Struktur des interaktiven nicht-linearen Videos kann dazu verwendet werden, die Startzeit am Anfang der Szenen zu minimieren, während das Download-Volumen nicht erhöht wird

Deliverable D9.1.1 Annual Project Scientific Report

This document comprises the publishable excerpts of the first periodic scientific report of LinkedTV. It includes a short summary, a progress report as well as a management report for the first reporting period

Capturing and indexing rehearsals: the design and usage of a digital archive of performing arts

Preserving the cultural heritage of the performing arts raises difficult and sensitive issues, as each performance is unique by nature and the juxtaposition between the performers and the audience cannot be easily recorded. In this paper, we report on an experimental research project to preserve another aspect of the performing arts—the history of their rehearsals. We have specifically designed non-intrusive video recording and on-site documentation techniques to make this process transparent to the creative crew, and have developed a complete workflow to publish the recorded video data and their corresponding meta-data online as Open Data using state-of-the-art audio and video processing to maximize non-linear navigation and hypervideo linking. The resulting open archive is made publicly available to researchers and amateurs alike and offers a unique account of the inner workings of the worlds of theater and opera