Video browsing interfaces and applications: a review

We present a comprehensive review of the state of the art in video browsing and retrieval systems, with special emphasis on interfaces and applications. There has been a significant increase in activity (e.g., storage, retrieval, and sharing) employing video data in the past decade, both for personal and professional use. The ever-growing amount of video content available for human consumption and the inherent characteristics of video data—which, if presented in its raw format, is rather unwieldy and costly—have become driving forces for the development of more effective solutions to present video contents and allow rich user interaction. As a result, there are many contemporary research efforts toward developing better video browsing solutions, which we summarize. We review more than 40 different video browsing and retrieval interfaces and classify them into three groups: applications that use video-player-like interaction, video retrieval applications, and browsing solutions based on video surrogates. For each category, we present a summary of existing work, highlight the technical aspects of each solution, and compare them against each other

Development of interactive and remote learning instruments for engineering education

Many educators have argued for and against the use of remote aids in support of student learning. Some proponents argue that only remote laboratories should be used whereas others argue for the requirement for hands on experience with associated tactical, visual and auditory learning experiences. In this paper we present the methodology for developing a middle ground Virtual Instruments that can be used as a complement learning aid to the hands on laboratory and also if necessary, with added features, can be used as a remote version of the laboratory

Object Segmentation in Images using EEG Signals

This paper explores the potential of brain-computer interfaces in segmenting objects from images. Our approach is centered around designing an effective method for displaying the image parts to the users such that they generate measurable brain reactions. When an image region, specifically a block of pixels, is displayed we estimate the probability of the block containing the object of interest using a score based on EEG activity. After several such blocks are displayed, the resulting probability map is binarized and combined with the GrabCut algorithm to segment the image into object and background regions. This study shows that BCI and simple EEG analysis are useful in locating object boundaries in images.Comment: This is a preprint version prior to submission for peer-review of the paper accepted to the 22nd ACM International Conference on Multimedia (November 3-7, 2014, Orlando, Florida, USA) for the High Risk High Reward session. 10 page

Formal features as a design factor of video segments in interactive video programmes

Video segments may be characterized by formal design features with respect to factors such as complexity of narration, mutual influence of picture and sound, use of superimposed texts, information load due to technical terms, and animation. The paper suggests ways to operationalize these factors and reports about an experiment in which the influence of these formal features was studied with respect to perceived information load of video segments by learners. The length of a segment was thereby counted as the number of information elements it contains. An information element is defined as one uninterrupted statement of the narrator about which one factual question can be presented. The experiment was carried out by using an experimental videodisc programme about cheesemaking that contains 252 information elements which form a connected discourse of 36 min if the programme is played linearly without stopping. Subjects had the task to divide this programme into segments by deciding for themselves how often they would stop before completing the programme. At every stopping place, the subjects were questioned about the content of the just completed segment.\ud \ud The results of the experiment suggest that: (a) subjects tend to perceive narrated sentences as one whole, regardless of the number of facts implied, (b) content-related technical terms seem not to determine difficulty level, (c) superimposed texts show a trend to help subjects who prefer short segments to choose longer segments and subjects who prefer long segments to choose shorter segments, (d) animation is positively (but moderately) correlated with mean self-chosen segment length

The perceptual and attentive impact of delay and jitter in multimedia delivery

In this paper we present the results of a study that examines the user’s perception—understood as both information assimilation and subjective satisfaction—of multimedia quality, when impacted by varying network-level parameters (delay and jitter). In addition, we integrate eye-tracking assessment to provide a more complete understanding of user perception of multimedia quality. Results show that delay and jitter significantly affect user satisfaction; variation in video eye path when either no single/obvious point of focus exists or when the point of attention changes dramatically. Lastly, results showed that content variation significantly affected user satisfaction, as well as user information assimilation