Multimedia authoring systems

Multimedia systems are different from other systems in two main respects:

COMP3600 Multimedia Systems

the variety of information objects used in applications the level of integration achieved in using these objects in complex interconnected applications

Multimedia Authoring and User Interface

Authoring systems for multimedia applications are designed for two primary target user groups:
professionals who prepare documents, images, audio and full-motion video clips for wide distribution average users who prepare documents and other multimedia objects for stored messages or presentations

Wai Wong

These two groups of users pose different requirements on the authoring systems
Average users require an authoring system to be simple and easy to use, performance may not be a very important issue Professional users require a high performance authoring system and more effective interface which may be more cryptic

COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

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Design issues for multimedia authoring

Setting up and maintaining enterprise-wide guidelines and standards
This ensures that proper user expectations are set on both quality and transferability of objects from one system to another

Standardise on one or two compression method for each type of data objects Make sure that the hardware and software required to support these compression methods are available Consider what is the more convenient and efcient means of accessing large object, such as video clips It is very useful to have some information about the object itself outside the object so that a user can decide if it needs to access the object without having to decompress it.

Display resolution
Because a large organisation will have many kinds of monitor supporting a large variety of resolution, it is necessary to select a small number (two or three) of display resolutions and protocols as the norm of the organisation. level of standardisation on display resolutions Display protocol standardisation Corporate norms for service degradations Corporate norms for network trafc degradations as they relate to resolution issues

Service degradation policies

This issue concerns with what will happen if resources is insufcient either temporarily or locally. For example, in a distributed video application, video is sent to a remote client to be played back. If the network is overloaded, a number of policies may be possible: Decline further requests with a message to try later and give proper reasons Provide the playback service but at a lower resolution Provide the playback service at full resolution but drop intermediate frames Provide service at full resolution and frame rate in blocks

File format and data compression

There are many le formats and data compression methods available for multimedia objects. Select a small set of le formats for which reliable conversion tools are available
COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

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Types of Multimedia authoring systems

Dedicated authoring systems is the simplest authoring systems
It is usually designed for a single user It needs a very intuitive interface

Structured authoring
This allows explicit manipulations of the structure of a multimedia presentation Explicit representation of the structure allows modular authoring of component objects Good authoring systems should allow the user
to dene an object hierarchy to specify the relative location of each object within that hierarchy

Timeline-based authoring
Objects are placed along a timeline The composition of objects is based on time
This makes the adjustment of objects lengths difcult Information about the relationship between objects is lost

to make temporal adjustment to objects

Newer systems allow authoring on the object composition level

Programmable authoring systems

This allows the dynamic manipulation of the objects The actual elements to be displayed or the action to be performed by an object is determined at runtime The program is interpreted by an interpreter embedded in the runtime system
COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

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Application design considerations

Integration of applications: the appearance of the applications and the ability of the applications to exchange data Common user interface Structuring the information is to identify the information objects and to develop an information model to dene the relationships among these objects
Object types and object hierarchies how the various attributes and representations of real-world objects are related Object representation consists of display/playback requirements and timing information for each object and its sub-objects Object connections describes the relationship between objects and helps to navigate among the objects

User interface design

Navigation refers to the sequence in which the application progresses
Direct navigation completely predened Free-form navigation the user determines the sequence of actions Browse navigation the user is provided a large number of choices An important aspect of any multimedia system is to maintain a clear perspective and the relationship between those objects

Designing user interface

A good user interface is dened as one that is perceived to be efcient and intuitive by most users A good user interface can be designed by following some structured guidelines:
Planning the overall structure of the application Planning the content of the application Planning the interactive behaviour Planning the look and feel of the application

COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

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Special metaphors
User interface metaphors are designs based on real world objects For user interface metaphors that were not known to users, a new design took sometime to take hold. The organiser metaphor Lotus Organiser This is a clear example of a close adaptation of an existing user interface to a GUI. The telephone metaphor combines a well-known user interface with other GUI element to provide a more convenient means of access information and perform communication Aural user interface the real challenge in designing AUI systems is to create an aural desktop that substitutes voice and ear for the keyboard and display, and be able to mix and match them The VCR metaphor this is one of the most common user interfaces

Information access
Direct this requires that the user has knowledge of the specic object that need to be accessed, e.g., object ID, object name Indexed an attribute of an object, e.g., ID, may be used as an index. Indexed access may result in multiple copies of the same object. Random selection (browsing) the user can pick one of several possible items that are not arranged in any logical sequence Path selection of guided tour the application guides the user through a predened path across a number of objects

Audio/video indexing functions are very important for stored clips

Exact indexing down to the frame level is desirable for video synchronisation to work correctly The indexing information must be stored on a permanent basis
COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

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Object display/playback issues

Image display issues Images are usually stored in compressed form. The original images are usually scanned in high resolution, e.g., 300/400dpi
Scaling is performed on the y after decompression Zooming allows the user to see more detail for a specic area of the image Panning allows the user to see different areas of an image Extra storage and processing power are required to support these features.

Summary
Design issues for multimedia authoring Types of Multimedia authoring systems Application design considerations User interface design Information access Object display/playback issues

Audio quality the server and network bandwidth will affect the smooth play back of audio Special features for video playback
Video frame interleaving denes the structure of the video le in terms of the layout of sound and video Programmed degradation goes into effect when the client workstation is unable to keep up with the incoming data Scene change frame detection can be automated. This helps in browsing through very large video clip Video scaling, panning and zooming
COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

COMP3600 Multimedia Systems 7. Multimedia Authoring and User Interface Department of Computer Science
(199811)

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