Broadercasting Meeting - Jones Farm Portland Oregon
The following is a bare but descriptive transcription of the event. In future events will be taped and broadcast to members via the site. We are still awaiting a few slides so please keep checking back
Surj.
V Michael Bove - Object Based Media Group - MIT Media Laboratory
Highlights from Michael's presentation
· The Challenge is no longer about getting data to people. We can do that quite well now. The real challenge lies in how we use it.
· It's about how connected applications can identify communities and support them.
· Most of the successful web applications (e-bay, Napster) have been about building support applications.
· Most of the current applications involve cataloguing and noting media.
Surj Patel - Research Assistant - Object based media group
· Broadercasting web site now up and running
· Has a "push" screensaver to keep members updated with the latest news.
· Doing well, but needs feedback from the viewership and readership as to whether
· or not it is hitting the targets· Suggestions welcomed about the site and for features
· Research is looking at generalized architectures for sharing media and also exploiting the social artifacts around broadcast media.
----- [Slides]
Stefan Agamanolis - Doctoral Candidate - Object Based Media group
· Broadcast Media is about Shared experiences
· Best to use technology to use strengthen connectedness
· Build it through the media - Viper. Don't personalize - Viperize!
· New Viper based Demo Box in the lab cuts a customized programme for you filled with content only relevant to you.
Icom
· Stemmed from question - How do you build connectedness in a large corporation?
· Icom provide 24 Hour awareness - in the background
· Instant Conference (foreground)
· Multi-Point - "Plug in and Play"
· Large Screen
· Casual Inviting space
· Shared space
· Reciprocity - What you see is what they see & vice versa
· Written in Isis
· Works on mid-range Linux machines
· Soon OS-X
· Projector and screen cost more than computer
Glorianna (ML) raised point about scalability - what happens when Icom reaches
100 nodes.
Kevin Brooks (Motorola) suggested that personalized views or ontologies might make more sense
Erik Blankinship suggests that the proximity of the messager might be represented by colour in the message.
Glorianna Davenport - Interactive Cinema Group - Media Lab
Talked about the current work going on in her group.
· Shared stories and narratives through multiple devices.
· Overhead for editing still too large and dense
· Need to be able to feel that you make structured scenes
· We need to develop methods and structures for stories
· Example
· When CNN started had little or no editing
· Wants to create a media environment where people can create media
· Maybe from this, new media forms will emerge
· Also we need to be able to permit people to create interfaces.
Aisiling Kelliher - Interactive Cinema Group
· Shareable media project
· Have a website that permits groups to create media
· Published API
· 2 Applications
· IndiVideo
----Puts video clips into structured sequences
----Contributors from a defined group· Plushorts
§ Collaborative Java tool, to to permit people to share, iconify and edit movie structures
§ Iconic presentation of structure
§ Presentation of video sequences as variant instances within a larger story thread
§ Further research directions :: further integration of sound components
§ Analysis of music video format
John Kirby (Intel) suggests that in group collaboration , protection of roles and boundaries must be kept.
Indidvideo
§ Collaborative online tool for thinking about video editing as a communal activity.
§ Evaluate through experimental video production
§ Future research directions
- both machine and human methods of how to mark compelling visual material
Glorianna Davenport (ML) says that Hollywood is exploring this paradigm of shared
production
John Kirby (Intel) - says that shared, participants non co-located, collaborative edit session in suites (Post Production ) is in real demand as a service.
Peng Kai Pan - Interactive Cinema Group - MediaLab
M-views for handhelds.
"Mviews is a handheld computer equipped with a wireless network card,
software agents, a video camera and a variety of sensors. Optimized for
video, the device facilitates personalized as well as collectively
co-constructed narrative play. Mviews can access shareable media from
servers embedded in place. The project introduces intercreativity to the
the activity of video making and receiving."[Slide]
Glorianna asks about what the GPS elements of metadata will offer.- will we have multiple views of one event or walk / route. E.g weddings and bar mitzvahs, you cant always be everywhere all the time.
- Elizabeth Rosenzweig concurs and says that intelligent agents will be important in the classification of and categorization of these clips.
- All agree that the creative use of additional context data will be important.
Glorianna - Potential for new forms where people collaborate , shooting for collaboration may be a development
Erik Blankinship - Explanation Architecture group - MediaLab
- How can we incorporate imagery into learning tools.
- Maybe a system that can send an email to parents telling them what the child has been watching
Kevin Brooks - suggests that people take a look at www.moviesthatteach.com. ( Movies that teach)Glorianna - Says that the tool would be important in relating members amongst a group
Image maps is described
- Set up an application with peer topeer filesharing that permits people to share photographs about geophysical locations
- People like to know what you are looking at
- Building a Myst like game with GPS and photo sectionsThomas Gardos (Intel) suggests that the ability to browse other peoples comments on the same scene would be good.
Kevin Brooks (Motorola) suggest that people could store stories in audio and text to accompany the photographs.
Andrew Lippman - Consortia Head - Digital Life - Media Lab
[Slides - awaiting]
- Formation of groups via common interest/ action groups
- TV Dates - where you buy wine and watch TV in physically different locations
- Use a search algorithm to recognize data within pictures
- Nuno Vasquelez 's Picture logger. Tested with newspaper images. Could recognize faces within crowds.
- Ad hoc networks - Gnutella has request swamping problems
Elizabeth Rosenzweig - Senior Research Scientist - Kodak Corporation
[ Slides - awaiting]
- Media Connector
- The camera can extend into a guide, tolet the user know there are more people doing the same thing, in the same place and time
- The camera can suggest places to go, or show similar pictures and lead her to more pictures that might be of interest
- Media Connector is a service system to develop communities
- Use consumer generated media to relate to other people within a community
- Use media gathering device to enable this
§ Cellphones, PDA's, etc
- Provides generic framework that is extensible to may project ideas, that is desirable to all sponsors
- Camera has clock, GPS and compass
- Kodak has done some work on cataloguing and indexing
- Scalable
- Shareable media to be tested on Broadercasting web site initiallyKevin Brooks mentioned "The Day In The Life" series of books.
Elisabeth's plea is that we all as sponsors and lab members work together.
There will be IP issues , but what we can gain collectively will be more. Looking for more Broadercasting applications.
Elisabeth says that the further convergence of devices will yield more opportunities - cellphones and cameras and PDA's.
Glorianna Davenport (ML) interested in the social applications with this.
Mike Bove ( ML) described the viewing of boring videos which have a control where the video would fast forward "stickily" to the next interesting item. Collaboratively the audience ended up "annotating" the video just by using it as they normally would.
Kathleen Mulhern -Mcann Ericcson
- Mcann largest TV ad Agency in the world
- 75 % revenue from TV
- Cost of TV commercials going up, audiences going down
- Technology is the answer to enhancing television
- Advertisers come in earlier with content producers
- IPG + Livewire to become the experts of convergent television
- Plan to develop 3 - 5 year plan of convergent media
- Mcann to work on Enhanced TV properties (see slides for details)
- Kathleen rallies members to get involved in their developmentElisabeth Rosenzweig (Kodak) counters that this is the same as product placement.
Glorianna Davenport (ML) counters that the project and involvement will yield many intangibles as well as the learning about interactive product placements
Kathleen - They are interested in trying collaborative storytelling and character projection with the iTV project "77 mass ave".
Genevieve Ball, "Thinking TV" - Intel Corporation
- Cultural Anthropologist
- Looks at how people use technology in the home
- Spent time in 150 households
- What would happen if we think of TV as the pervasive platform.- People have the TV switched on even though it is not tuned to anything.
- Has done field work in
o Ecuador
o Chile
o India
o Western Europe
o UK
o USA- data
o interview notes and transcriptions
o photos and video
o secondary source materialo one of 10 ways to use the television, e.g
o Background Noise
o The movie Experience
o Special Events
§ Olympics
§ Princess Diana
§ Moon Landing
§ JFK
§ Cuban Crisis- Together time (snugglevision)
§ a time together
- Daily activity,
§ Frame their day with it.- Information
§ News
§ Teletext
Outside the USA people are more receptive to other service relationships with their television.- Channel Surfing
- Viewing Communities
- Shared Communities
- Water Cooler
- The TV as Babysitter
§ Kids will watch programmes again and again
§ Comforter
- Fun and GamesVideo Games
Interactive applications
Andy Lippman (ML) asks about the relationship between viewing content type and time of day. I.e soaps in the day, "Survivor" at night.Genevieve answers that it was dependant on region but people with PVR's completely shattered it, but then again they were early adopters who don't watch TV in the same way.
Jerry Winter "Broadcast Content Services" - Intel Corporation
- Vision - develop a sustainable business for on demand delivery of digital entertainment
- Initially focused on combining the best of the web with the best of broadcast
- Learn (and make money) by doing.
- Starting to create a model of trickle feed PVR.
- They will have IPR protection as apart of the basic service, digitally.Mike Bove points out that even the connection between the screen and the playback unit will have to be encrypted otherwise people could just as easily tape the RF from the feed.
Regis Crinon - Datacasting in DTV - Intel Corporation
- Terrestrial DTV. There are 1300 commercial TV stations in the US. FCC mandated them being broadcasting digital by 2002.
- As opposed to NTSC and the VBI (vertical blanking interrupt) systems deployed before , these are an integral part of the transport streams.
- Lots of data channels - virtual audio, video, data.
- Via satellite, cable and terrestrial.
- Will consider at the moment only terrestrial
§ Datacasting is not HDTV
§ Uses subset of HDTV hardware
- Internet delivery methods do not scale well
- DSL is expensive
- Broadcast Data pipe => 19.3 mbps => 1 gb every 7 minutes.
- 150 stations control 90% of the audience
- Features
§ 1 to Many
§ Easy to Discover with an EPG
§ Push not Pull
§ Content Cached by receiver
§ Personalization / Client Filter- Terrestrial DTV in need of new business models to pay for the transition to DTV
- Capacity doubling every year in Hard Drives, we now have 80gbytes + Today. Enables cacheing of rich content.
- ATSC - advanced television systems committee
§ A/90 + implementation guide + book
§ IP Multicast
§ Data Synchronisation
Andrew Lippman argues that the only reason for this service is due to FCC mandates
and that this is artificial. They are doing this to just get past the FCC and
they are co-opting this service to 3rd parties to just get past legislation.
Netcasting Overview - John Kirby - Intel
- Increase Intel revenues by developing new business models that sell chips
- Netcasting Team will
§ Create Technologies
§ Enhance 3rd Party Technologies- Quality of service
- Deriving value from content - protection and IP
- Web targeted content - What makes this better
- Findability / Personalisation - How do you find what you want
- Multiple End PointsPortable Video Ingredients
- New uses, New Demand for X-scale devicesStreaming Media Metrics
- How good is the video I am sending
- ILVC is also the G2 codec
- Continually Improve quality
Sports Immersion- An Israeli company called Orad has a system called ToPlay soccer
- System replays plays in live 3D videogame style
- Work done in Post Production
- Can create 4 x 30 second clips, 2 Hours after the game
Aaron Cohen - Intel - "SMIL 2.0"
§ SMIL was initially created in response to the demand to create TV like experiences for the web.
§ XML based language, choreographing multimedia presentations, combining video, audio, stills etc etc in real time
§ Defines where and when content appears
§ SMIL 1.0 W3C recommendation - June 98.
§ SMIL 2.0 is the next version
§ Basically full spatial and temporal control
§ Provides logical structure
§ SMIL 2.0 is XML and hence can integrate with XML.
§ The SMIL 2.0 language is the main profile.
§ Enables creation of other multimedia capable XML languages that specific application needs.
Mike Bove (ML) asks why the SMIL 2.0 standard is not incorporated into the ATVEF standard?
Japan has BML ( Broadcast Markup Language)
Answer :- Don't Know, SMIL push has mainly been for the web. TV will incorporate elements of XHMTL and SMIL.\
Surj Patel (ML) asks if there is a Document Object Model available with Javascript / Java.
Answer is they are working on it.
V Micheal Bove - Object Based Media Group MIT Media Laboratory
Mike Bove thanked presenters and staff and summed up.
Take Aways
- Stay tuned for further info on the web site and its development.
- Media connector - Kodak - Shareable Media work
§ Glorianna's team to contribute
§ MediaBank - spec from Andy Lippman and Henry Holtzmann still relevant- OBMG will look into getting viper to import / export SMIL 2.0.
- Kathleen would like to initiate envisioning exercises and small demonstrations of iTV apps. This will initiate in the next two months.
- A professional writer will be doing treatments for the above.
- Will be made public via the Broadercasting site.
- Suggestions are welcome for the next Broadercasting ,meeting to include talkers, venue and topics.