Tutorials Schedule
ACM Multimedia 2001, Ottawa, Canada
Day
1 Tutorials, SUNDAY, Sept. 30, 2001
SEP30-A MPEG-7: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
SUNDAY, Sept. 30, 2001, 8:30 am –
5:00 pm
Authors:
|
Adam T. Lindsay |
Lancaster University, UK |
|
|
Ed Hartley |
Lancaster University, UK |
|
|
Cédric Thiénot |
Expway, France |
Duration: Full day
Level: Intermediate
Intended audience:
A large number of people are aware of the existence
of MPEG-7 as a pending international standard, but few know enough to implement
parts of the standard appropriate for applications. This tutorial is for those
who work in related areas, such as programmers and engineers who have developed
content-based indexing schemes, or are approaching the multimedia content
description standard with a view to the implementation of a related system. A
basic knowledge of XML, document indexing, and/or signal processing is helpful.
Tutorial Overview:
Attendees will be introduced to the principles of
multimedia content description, and the importance of making clear distinctions
between multiple representations of the same content. This is critical
background material, as the MPEG-7 standard does not strongly make these
distinctions whilst it does provide a broad selection of tools to support these
representations.
Following these underpinnings, we will examine the components that go
into 1) understanding the specifics of the standard and 2) implementing a
system that uses MPEG-7 descriptions. This naturally includes an introduction
to the Description Definition Language as an XML-Schema language extension that
is used to express nearly all of the MPEG-7 standard, Building on that, the
basic Multimedia Description Schemes provide the foundation for the specific
description capabilities of the standard. We will then consider the rest of the
Multimedia Description Schemes, the Audio, the Video, and the Systems parts of
the standard through an approach that is focussed on the needs of MPEG-7 system
implementers.
Clearly, there is a limit to the detail possible in
the time available, but we will stress a pragmatic approach to working with the
standard. Participants will not be overloaded with unnecessary detail but
rather will emerge with a conceptual understanding of multimedia description,
the basic concepts that permeate the standard, and the knowledge of where to
look in the standard for further information.
The content of the tutorial will stress the practical
application of MPEG-7 in the construction of an application. This will be based
on research work carried out by Adam Lindsay and Ed Hartley which in turn rests
on more than 10 years research work into multimedia content representation and
delivery by Alan Parkes and other members of the Lancaster University
Distributed Multimedia Research Group. This group has several current research
projects related to MPEG-7 description application, creation, and delivery in
progress.
Morning
Session: Introduction and Basic Application Tools
Introduction
[Lindsay, 25 min]
The
introduction is built upon introducing the different ways people might approach
meta-data, and the importance of each of them. These "multiple
representations" are used as a unifying theme for the day.
·
What
is multimedia content description?
·
Content
description over time
·
Information
retrieval in the internet age
·
Converging
trends for multimedia
·
The
need for multiple representations
·
Thinking
clearly, dividing the problem
MPEG-7
Introduction [Hartley Lindsay, 50 min]
We
give a background on MPEG and its importance to industry (implying the impact
MPEG-7 can have). We draw upon our history of direct involvement with the group
to detail the original goals of MPEG-7, before multimedia content description
seemed feasible, and its present role in an industry full of attempts at
meta-data for Multimedia.
·
MPEG
history [Hartley]
·
MPEG-7 Motivation
·
MPEG-7 Organisation
·
Committees
and Standards
·
Organisation
of the Standard document
·
How
the pieces fit, how the pieces relate to our theory
·
MPEG-7
as a Toolkit for Content Representation [Lindsay]
·
Multiple
Representations
·
Multiple
Viewpoints
·
Overview
of an MPEG-7 application
Break [20
min]
MPEG-7
Basics: DDL [ Thiénot , 40 min]
Perhaps the most important part of understanding the MPEG-7 standard
lies in the Description Definition Language (DDL). It is the representation
language that the rest of the standard is built upon, and feeling comfortable
with reading the code is critical for reading the international standard.
·
A
brief history of mark-up languages
·
XML
and XML-Schema
·
The
need for a DDL
·
DDL
basics
·
Understanding
the code
·
Importance
of keeping Schema and Description separate
·
Writing
a simple Description Scheme
·
Role
of DDL in an MPEG-7 Application
MDS
Basic Tools [Lindsay, Hartley, 60 min]
After the DDL, the next
critical parts of MPEG-7 are the basic tools detailed in the Multimedia
Description Schemes part of the standard. They describe not only basic data
types such as vectors and matrices, but also a temporal model, a
spatio-temporal decomposition that permeates the standard, ontologies, and
modelling principles.
·
Basic
Data-types [Lindsay]
·
Time
·
Segments
·
Links
and Reference [Hartley]
·
Controlled
term lists & ontologies
·
People,
Places, and Things
·
Role
of Basic MDS Tools in an MPEG-7 Application
Lunch 12:00
-14:00
Afternoon Session: Overview
of Media Delivery and Specialised Application Tools
Visual
Tools [Hartley, 30 min]
The visual tools play a
fundamental role in the analysis multimedia content. They support image and
video region and feature analysis
·
Basic
Video Descriptor Structures
·
Color,
Texture and Shape Descriptors
·
Camera,
trajectory, parametric and activity motion
·
Region
and spatio-temporal locators
·
Others
·
Role
of Specialised Video Tools in an MPEG-7
Application
Audio Tools [Lindsay, 30 min]
As long-standing MPEG-7
Audio AhG chairman, Mr. Lindsay has given an overview of the audio tools many
times. The Audio part of the standard describes both high-level tools, which
are packages of tools arrayed about an application area such as spoken content
or music, and a low-level framework, which allows implementers to build their
own audio descriptions.
·
Audio
“applications”
·
Audio
low-level framework
·
What
goes into an audio system?
·
Role
of Specialised Audio Tools in an MPEG-7
Application
MDS Specialised Tools [Hartley, 30 min]
MDS,
multimedia description schemes in addition to providing a set of basic tools also
provide a broad set of tools to support a variety of application classes. These
tools will be described together with their role in building an application.
·
Media
Description Schemes
·
Content
Structure, Organisation, Navigation and Access
·
User
Interaction
·
Role
of Specialised MDS Tools in an MPEG-7 Application
Break [20
min]
Systems
Tools [Thiénot, 30 min]
The Systems tools form the
glue that allow the descriptions coming from all other parts of the standard to
be transmitted reliably and efficiently.
·
Binary
format
·
File
format
·
Synchronisation
and Delivery
·
Role
of Systems in an MPEG-7 Application
MPEG-7
Application Architectures and Reference
Software [Hartley, 30 min]
·
A
Single media Example Application
·
A
Multimedia Example Application
·
Role
and Status of MPEG-7 Reference Software
Conclusions
[Lindsay 10 min]
·
Relationship
of MPEG-7 to other standardisation activities
·
Role
in Marketplace
·
Future
Directions.
Biographical
Notes
Adam T.
Lindsay
After joining the Belgian private research company Starlab as one of
its charter Principal Investigators, Adam Lindsay became aware of the nascent
effort in MPEG-7, and for over three years led Starlab's activities in Aware
and Autonomous Multimedia. Since then he has been a researcher in the
Multimedia Content Group at Lancaster University under the tutelage of Alan
Parkes. Adam's interest in multimedia content description was born during his
MSc earned at the MIT Media Lab, investigating a cognitively-motivated
mid-level representation for melody, to enable query-by-humming. He draws upon
his four years of direct involvement with MPEG-7, moving from leading
activities within Requirements, Applications, and Proposal Evaluation to his
long-standing position as MPEG-7 Audio chairman. Adam has been an invited
speaker at several talks introducing MPEG-7 over the years, most recently at
the Symposium for Multimedia Standards for the New Millennium, in Brussels, at
the MPEG-7 Awareness Event in Singapore, and at a workshop at AES, in
Amsterdam.
Ed
Hartley
Following an eighteen-year career in the electronics
and telecommunication industries Ed Hartley graduated in 1996 with a BSc in
Computer Science. Since then he has pursued research interests in Multimedia
Content Representation and Annotation. He has contributed extensively to MPEG-7
throughout its development since 1997 as variously chair, co-chair, and
contributor to the Requirements, DDL, Systems, MDS, Video and currently
Conformance activities. Additionally he hosted the MPEG-7 technology evaluation
meeting at Lancaster University and has contributed to liaison activities with
other bodies such as SMPTE. He chairs
the UK National Body MPEG Panel and has presented papers on MPEG-7 related
topics at several conferences and at an IEE residential course.
Cédric Thiénot
Cédric Thiénot graduated with a computer science engineer degree of the
“Ecole Centrale” of Lyon in France. After completing his PhD in computer
science from University of Paris IV on the domain of pseudo-intuitionistic
logic and knowledge representation, Cédric joined the multimedia indexing team
of University of Paris VI. He became responsible of the MPEG-7 activity and
lead its activity during two years. Cédric contributed extensively to the definition
of the MPEG-7 Description Definition Language since the beginning. He recently
founded a company “Expway” dedicated to the processing, management and
compression of XML files. Cédric is now involved in the DDL activity but also
in the system groups where he contributed to development of the binary format
of MPEG-7 (BiM).
SEP30-B WIRELESS
SOFTWARE DESIGN FOR HANDHELD DEVICES - CANCELLED
SUNDAY, Sept. 30, 2001, 8:30 am –
12:00 pm
Author:
|
Qusay H. Mahmoud |
Carleton University, CANADA |
Duration: Half-day
Objective:
Participants will acquire knowledge about wireless
programming techniques in general and Java programming for mobile devices in particular.
They will know about the different techniques that can be used for wireless
programming and how/when to use them. Issues in User Interface design for
handheld devices will be discussed.
Background: knowledge of the Java programming
language.
Presentation format:
presentation based.
Tutorial
Overview:
Most Internet technologies are designed for desktop
and large computers running on reliable networks with relatively high
bandwidth. Hand-held wireless devices, on the other hand, have a more constrained
computing environment. They tend to have less memory, less powerful CPUs,
different input devices, and smaller displays. The Wireless Application
Protocol (or WAP), which is a specification developed by the WAP Forum, takes
advantage of the several data-handling approaches already in use. Developing
wireless applications using WAP technologies is similar to developing web pages
with a markup language because it is browser based. Another approach to
developing wireless applications is to use the Mobile Information Device
Profile (MIDP).
With either WAP or MIDP, the Java programming
language plays an important role. In WAP, Java Servlets and Java Server Pages
(JSPs) can be used to generate Wireless Markup Language (WML) pages
dynamically, and in MIDP, applications (also called MIDlets) are written in
Java.
The tutorial will help participants understand the
different technologies that can be used to develop wireless applications for
hand-held devices.
The
list of major topics to be covered in this tutorial includes:
-
Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML)
-
Compact HTML (cHTML)
-
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)
- Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME)
-
Kilo Virtual Machine (KVM)
- Mobile Information Device profile (MIDP)
-
Palm Programming with Java
-
Security Issues
-
Useful Resources
Biographical
Note:
Qusay H. Mahmoud provides Java consulting and training
services. He has published dozens of articles on the Java programming language,
including the MIDP and Palm programming articles for Sun Microsystems Java
Developer Connection. He moderates the Device Programming for ITWorld.com.
Qusay is the author of Distributed Programming with Java (Manning Publications,
1999).
SEP30-C PRACTICAL DIGITAL LIBRARIES OVERVIEW - CANCELLED
SUNDAY,
Sept. 30, 2001, 8:30 am – 12:00 am
Author:
|
Edward A. Fox |
Virginia Tech, USA |
Duration: Half-day
Level: Introductory or
intermediate
Intended
audience:
Researchers, developers, practitioners, librarians,
managers, or others who do not have extensive experience in the field of
digital libraries and who want a broad overview.
Objectives:
Participants will leave
with the knowledge of:
·
Using
metadata elements (objects) to catalog (multimedia) information
·
Requirements
for publishing electronically, including so works can be archived easily
·
The
key issues that arise for digital library system design and performance
·
The
commercial and legal factors in using and creating digital libraries
·
A
comprehensive understanding of digital library technology and its social
implications
Tutorial Overview:
The tutorial will start with an overview of
definitions, foundations, scenarios and perspectives. It will cover a variety
of issues, including search, retrieval and resource discovery;
multimedia/hypermedia; metadata (e.g., Dublin Core); electronic publishing;
document models and representations; SGML and XML; database approaches; agents
and distributed processing; 2D and 3D interfaces and visualizations; metrics;
architectures and interoperability; commerce; educational and social concerns;
and intellectual property rights, among others.
Case
studies will be used to illustrate key concepts, including:
·
Computer
Science Teaching Center (www.cstc.org)
·
National
Science (, Mathematics, Engineering, Technology Education) Digital Library (NSF
NSDL)
·
Networked
Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (www.ndltd.org)
·
Open
Archives Initiative (www.openarchives.org)
Materials:
For this tutorial, a packet will be prepared
containing all of the PowerPoint slides used, along with some overview
publications prepared by the instructor.
For examples of some packets used previously, see http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~dlib
and note that with this content on the WWW, the size of the packet can be
reduced as needed to suit conference needs.
OUTLINE
Part 1. Foundations
·
Early
visions, definitions, resources/references, projects
Part
2. Search, Retrieval, Resource Discovery
·
Information
storage and retrieval, Boolean vs. natural language
·
Indexing:
Phrases, Thesauri, Concepts
·
Federated
search and harvesting, OAi, Crawlers/spiders/metasearch
·
Integrating
links and ratings
Part
3. Multimedia, Representations
·
Text/audio/image/video/graphics/animation
·
Capture,
Digitization, Compression
·
Standards,
Interchange: JPEG, MPEG (including MPEG-7)
·
Content-based
retrieval, Playback, QoS
Part
4. Architectures
·
Modular/componentized,
Protocols
·
Buses,
Mediators, Wrappers
Part
5. Interfaces
·
Workflow,
Environments, Taxonomy of interface components, Visualization
·
Design,
Usability testing
Part
6. Metadata
·
Ontologies,
RDF
·
MARC,
Dublin Core, IMS
·
Mappings,
Crosswalks
Part
7. Electronic Publishing, SGML, XML
·
Authoring,
Presenting, Rendering
·
Dual-publishing,
Styles
·
Structure,
Semi-structured information, Tagging/markup, Structure queries
Part
8. Database Issues
·
Extending
database technology
·
Structured
and unstructured information
·
Multimedia
databases, Link databases
·
Performance/replication/storage
Part
9. Agents
·
Distributed
issues
·
Protocols,
Negotiation
Part
10. Commerce, Economics, Publishers
·
Preservation
and archives
·
Terms
and conditions, Open collections, Self-archiving
·
Economic
models
Part
11. Intellectual Property Rights, Security
·
Legal
issues
·
Copyright,
Rights management
Part
12. Social Issues
·
Cooperation and collaboration, Ratings, Annotation
·
Educational applications, Digital divide
·
Museums, Cultural heritage, International concerns
·
Organizational acceptance/issues, Personalization
Biographical
Note:
Dr. Edward A. Fox holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science
from Cornell University, and a B.S. from M.I.T. Since 1983 he has been at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI&SU, also called Virginia
Tech), where he serves as Professor of Computer Science. He directs the Digital
Library Research Laboratory, the Internet Technology Innovation Center at
Virginia Tech, and varied R&D projects. He is general chair of the First
ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries. He is co-editor-in-chief of ACM
Journal of Educational Resources in Computing (JERIC) and serves on the
editorial boards of a number of journals. He has authored or co-authored many
publications in the areas of digital libraries, information storage and
retrieval, hypertext/hypermedia/multimedia, computational linguistics, CD-ROM
and optical disc technology, electronic publishing, and expert systems.
SEP30-D CONTENT ANALYSIS AND CODING OF DIGITAL AUDIO AND VIDEO
SUNDAY, Sept. 30, 2001, 1:30 pm-5:00 pm
Author:
|
Stephan Fischer |
Mobile Video
Communication (MVC), GERMANY |
Duration: Half-day
Level: Introductory
Tutorial Overview:
Multimedia
content processing, and digital storage and retrieval have become important
research issues in the last decade. The tutorial will explain both the
mechanisms necessary to analyze the content of digital audio and video, and the
processing of such data in the context of MPEG-4.Content processing will be
highlighted in a threefold approach. First, basic algorithms are explained
which exploit basic features such as color, texture, loudness, frequencies, and
pitch, to name a few. In a second step derived features such as the automatic
detection of cuts, fades, dissolves, wipes or zooms are explained. In the third
step, applications, for example the recognition of text or faces, will be
explained, together with application examples in systems like QBIC, Informedia,
Virage, or VisualSeek.
The table of contents is as
follows:
1. Goals of Content
Processing
2. Analysis of Still Images
2.1 Features
2.2. Distance calculation
3. Analysis of Picture
Sequences
3.1 Motion vectors (incl.
Optical flow)
3.2 Cut detection
3.3 Shot transitions
3.4 Camera operations
3.5 Spatial geometries
3.6 Scene analysis
3.7 Selection of key frames
3.8 Shot similarity
4. Audio Analysis
4.1 Syntactical audio
features
4.2 Semantical audio
features
4.3 Signal analysis
4.4 Audio cut detection
4.5 Onset and offset
5. Applications
5.1 Text Recognition
5.2 Recognition of Silence
5.3 Recognition of Music
5.4 Newscast Recognition
5.5 Recognition of
Commercials
5.6 Video Abstracting
6. MPEG-4
6.1 Goals
6.2 Scope
6.3 Video and Image Encoding
6.4 Encoder
6.5 Composition of Scenes
6.6 Scaling
6.7 Synthetic Objects
6.8 Layered Networking
Architecture
6.9 Error Handling
Biographical Note:
Dr.
Stephan Fischer is Chief Technology Officer at Mobile VideoCommunication AG (MVC) in
Germany. Before that he has been senior researcher at GMD-IPSI in Darmstadt and
assistant professor at TU Darmstadt. He studied computer science and business
administration and got his PhD in 1997 from the University of Mannheim in the
area of video and audio content processing. Dr. Fischer has published various
papers with regard to content analysis and has held a number of tutorials on
content processing. He has also served in different program committees, for
example for ACM Multimedia 1998, 1999, 2000 (Program Chair), and 2001 where he
is and was responsible for the area of content and coding.
SUNDAY, Sept. 30, 2001- 1:30pm-5:00 pm
Authors:
|
Frank Eliassen Thomas Plagemann |
Simula Research Laboratory, NORWAY University of Oslo, NORWAY |
|
Duration: Half-day
Level: Introductory
Intended audience:
The tutorial is intended for researchers and
practitioners having knowledge on issues and requirements of multimedia
computing and who needs an insight into state of the art in multimedia
middleware and in current and approaching multimedia middleware research
prototypes. The tutorial is also suitable for researchers on multimedia
computing that will participate in the Workshop on Multimedia Middleware to be
held in conjunction with ACM Multimedia’01, but who feel they need a better
understanding of the concept of multimedia middleware to fully appreciate the
workshop.
Tutorial
Overview:
The overall aim of the tutorial is to provide the
participants with an appreciation of modern middleware technologies, with a
focus towards recent developments in support of multimedia computing. More
specifically, the tutorial has the following key objectives:
·
To
introduce the key characteristics of modern middleware platforms in general and
OMG CORBA in particular
·
To
provide an understanding of multimedia requirements to middleware
·
To
review and discuss state of the art
of CORBA based technologies for
multimedia computing
·
To
describe and discuss key research projects addressing the shortcomings in the
state of the art, highlighting the main
approach in each case
Tutorial
outline:
Part I (approx 2 hours).
Presented
by Frank Eliassen
1.
Introduction
to middleware:
Definition of middleware; different styles of middleware; focus on distributed
objects
2.
Introduction
to CORBA:
What is the OMG? The Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA);
alternative middleware technologies
3.
Requirements
to multimedia middleware
4.
Existing
technologies and standards for multimedia middleware, including:
CORBA A/V streams and RT-CORBA
Part II (approx 2 hours) Presented by
Thomas Plagemann
1.
Multimedia
middleware research prototypes (c.f. soft real-time):
QuO, Agilos, LegORB
2.
Real-time
multimedia middleware research prototypes:
Real-time CORBA/TAO, GOPI, omniORB
3.
Open
issues and future challenges
Biographical
Notes:
Frank Eliassen is executive research
director of Simula Research Laboratory, Oslo and professor of distributed
systems at the University of Oslo. He
is currently also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Tromsø in Norway. Eliassen
has been conducting research in the area of distributed systems since 1983. His
earlier research in this area focused on distributed heterogeneous object
management (naming and persistence) and advanced transaction models for
distributed systems, while his recent research contributions has been in the
area of typing issues and interoperability of multimedia streams and multimedia
binding frameworks for middleware. A recent paper on the latter topic was
published at the ACM/IFIP sponsored conference Middleware’2000, New York, USA.
He has published many papers in his field and has served as program committee
member of many major international conferences and workshops in data
engineering, distributed systems and multimedia. Eliassen has taught courses at
graduate level on distributed object.-based middleware since 1991. He is
currently teaching coures on distributed systems and object-based middleware at
the University of Oslo, and on next generation middleware at the University of
Tromsø (together with professor Gordon Blair).
Dr. Thomas
Plagemann
received his Diploma in Computer Science from the University Erlangen-Nurnberg
(Germany) in 1990, and his Doctor of Technical Science from Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich (Switzerland) in 1994. In 1995, he was
honoured with the Medal of the ETH Zurich for his doctoral thesis, in which he
developed the Da CaPo communication subsystem. From 1994 to 1996 Thomas
Plagemann was a researcher at UniK - Center of Technology at Kjeller and
Telenor R&D (Norway). Since 1996, Thomas Plagemann is Professor at the
University of Oslo. His research interests include multimedia middleware,
protocol architectures, QoS, operating system support for distributed
multimedia systems, and interactive distance learning. His recent research
results in the area of multimedia middleware and operating system support will
for example be published at IEEE OpenArch 2001 and IEEE INFOCOM 2001. In total,
Thomas Plagemann has published 46 refereed papers in his field. He has lectured
courses and seminars in the areas of communications, multimedia, operating
systems, and distributed systems at the University of Oslo, the University of
Tromsø, and for industry. Furthermore, he has given two successful tutorials on
“Operating System Support for Multimedia Systems” at the international events
IDMS’99 and ConTel’99.
Day 2
Tutorials: MONDAY, October 1, 2001
OCT01-A MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGIES AND APPLICATIONS IN THE NEW INTERNET
MONDAY,
Oct.1, 2001, 8:30 am- 5:00 pm
Author:
|
Nicolas D. Georganas |
University of Ottawa, CANADA |
Duration: Full day
Level: Introductory
Intended Audience:
This tutorial is for beginners in multimedia and Internet
technologies. Its objective is to present the state-of-the-art in multimedia
enabling technologies, services and applications, over a variety of networks
and protocols, with emphasis on the new wireless home and Internet world. At
the end of the tutorial, the audience will be familiar with most of the basic
Internet and home protocols and multimedia services and will have enjoyed some
new applications of Virtual Reality in collaborative multimedia.
Tutorial overview:
The tutorial first presents a brief overview of
multimedia applications and shows some video clips of emerging multimedia
services. It then introduces the fundamental networking technologies used for
multimedia services and discusses their problems. Particular emphasis is placed
on the new Wireless Handheld, Home and Personal Area Networks and Protocols,
such as Bluetooth, HomeRF and WAP. The basic video and audio compression
technologies are presented, including the entire MPEG and H263 families, with
emphasis on MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. Next,
the Internet protocols are presented, as also new standards for Quality of
Service provision on the Internet (IntServ, DiffServ). Fundamental e-security
procedures and protocols are presented, as also new authentication and content
protection procedures such as digital watermarking. The tutorial also
demonstrates new multimedia applications in e-commerce, tele-collaboration,
tele-training and tele-medicine using Collaborative Virtual Reality. In brief,
it will cover the following multimedia topics, enhanced with video clips:
- Introduction,
Applications
- Networking Technologies for
multimedia (LAN, MAN, WLAN, HAN, WAN, ATM, IP)
- Multimedia to the home (DSL,
cable,wireless,...)
- Image, Video and Audio Compression
- Multimedia Synchronization
- Multimedia and the Internet: IP and
other protocols, QoS provision, Mobile IP, WAP.
- Multimedia conferencing and
collaboration tools
- e-commerce and Security issues
- Digital Watermarking for
Multimedia
- Virtual Reality and Collaborative
Virtual Environments & applications
Detailed
Outline:
PART I (morning):
Introduction
Recent history of
multimedia technologies
Business and home
multimedia applications
Networking Technology for Multimedia
Local Area Networks
(LAN):
"legacy" LANs (Ethernet, Token Ring)
FDDI, FDDI-II
Switched Ethernet
Isochronous Ethernet (IEEE 802.9)
Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps)
Gigabit Ethernet (IEEE 802.3z)
Wireless LANs and Wireless
Personal Area Networks
IEEE
802.11
Bluetooth
IEEE
802.15
HomeRF
Wide Area Networking
(WAN)
Key WAN Services for Multimedia
Bridges and Routers
ATM Networking
Brief review of N-ISDN, B-ISDN , ATM.
Adaptation layer (AAL) for different ATM classes of service
ATM comparisons with other technologies
Multimedia to the Home
Access Technologies:
Telephone, DSL, Cable, Wireless cable
Fiber-in-the-loop,
Fiber-to-the-home, Hybrid Fiber-coax
Digital Image, Video and Audio Compression in Multimedia Communications
Compression needs in
Multimedia
Video services,
bandwidth and storage needs
Image and video coding
standards: JPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MPEG-7, H.263
Software
Compression/Decompression
Multimedia Synchronization
Basic
synchronization concepts and methods
Synchronization Quality
of Service (QoS) Parameters
Synchronized Multimedia
Integration Language (SMIL)
PART II (afternoon)
Multimedia and the Internet
OSI reference model
Internet Protocols: TCP,
UDP, IP, IPv6
Mobile IP
Unicast, Broadcast,
Multicast
Protocol requirements
for multimedia
RSVP
Real Time Transport
protocol (RTP, RTCP)
QoS provisiioning over IP
networks: IntServ, DiffServ
Internet telephony,
Internet Fax
WWW, HTML, XML, Java
Real Time Streaming
Protocol (RTSP)
Government concerns on
Web usage
Wiresess Internet and Wireless application Protocol (WAP)
Multimedia conferencing and collaboration tools
Conferencing standards
Conferencing market evolution
Conferencing systems
Tele-collaboration tools
e-Commerce and e-Security
Cryptography
Public key Encryption
Secure Sockets Layer, SHTTP,
IPSec,SMIME
Secure Electronic Transactions
(SET)
Attacks on e-security
Digital Watermarking for Multimedia
Classification of
watermarks
Image, video, audio and text
watermarking techniques
Virtual Reality as a new Medium
Virtual Reality Modeling
Language (VRML)
Java3D
Distributed Virtual
Environments
High-Level Architecture (HLA)
: A new OMG standard for distributed simulations
Applications in industrial
training, e-commerce, tele-collaboration
Biographical Sketch:
Nicolas D. Georganas is Canada Research Chair in
Information Technology and Director of the Multimedia Communications
Research Laboratory (MCRLab), School of Information Technology and
Engineering, University of Ottawa, Canada. He has been leading multimedia
application development projects since 1984 and has lectured on multimedia
internationally. He was General Chair of the ACM Multimedia 2001 (Ottawa),
IEEE Multimedia Systems'97 Conference (ICMCS97)(June 1997, Ottawa) and
Technical Program Chair of the IEEE COMSOC MULTIMEDIA'89 (Montebello,
Canada) and of the ICCC Multimedia Communications'93 Conference (Banff,
Canada). He has served as Guest Editor of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in
Communications, issues on"Multimedia Communications" (1990) and on
"Synchronization Isssues in Multimedia Communications" (1996). He is
on the editorial boards of the journals Multimedia Tools and Applications,
ACM/Springer Multimedia Systems, ACM Computing Surveys, Performance Evaluation,
Computer Networks, Computer Communications, and was an editor of the IEEE
Multimedia Magazine. He is a Fellow of IEEE, Fellow of the Canadian
Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada and
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 1998, he was honored as the
University of Ottawa Researcher of the Year and also received the University
150th Anniversary Gold Medal for Research. In 1999, he received the T.W.Eadie
Medal of the Royal Society of Canada, funded by Bell Canada, for contributions
to Canadian and International Telecommunications. In 2000, he received the
J.C.Smith Medal of the Engineering Institute of Canada, the A.G.L.McNaughton
Medal of IEEE Canada, the OCRI Presidents's Award, the Bell-Canada-Forum Award
of the Corporate-Higher Education Forum, the TeleLearning Researcher
Achievement Award and a Canada Research Chair.
OCT01-B SCALABLE MULTIMEDIA SERVERS
MONDAY, Oct.1, 2001, 8:30 am – 12:00 pm
Author:
|
B. Prabhakaran |
University of Texas at Dallas, USA |
Level
:
Intermediate.
Intended
Audience :
Professionals
who are working or thinking in terms of working in
the
area of multimedia and Internet.
Tutorial
Overview:
Scalability is a very important issue in providing
Internet services, especially in view of the explosive growth in the number
of Web users. When using the phrase `Internet services', we consider text as
well as multimedia presentations over the Internet, since accessing video and
audio have become an integral part of the Web browsing activity. While this
task of scalability can be considered as one of finding the best server or
resource, the key issue of interest here is providing such a service in a
transparent manner to the client.
Scalability can also be in terms of the multimedia
data format. For instance, MPEG series of standards offer multiple qualities of
video as multiple independent bitstreams. This is achieved through the use of
hierarchical coding process: a coarse representation or base layer is first
constructed and then successive enhancements are provided.
This tutorial describes the strategies that can be
employed for scalable multimedia servers on the Internet. First, we consider a
transparent approach using Domain Name Server (DNS). After identifying the
limitations of a pure DNS approach, we analyze the object redirection approach
in the HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol). We then discuss commercial products
(such as Local Director, NetDispatcher, Akamai) as well as research projects in
providing scalable multimedia services on the Internet. Finally, we consider
scalable data formats offered by MPEG series of standards and discuss how
multimedia servers can make use of them effectively.
Tutorial
Outline :
The
following topics will be discussed during the tutorial.
1.
Introduction
We discuss the issues in web hosting and offering
multimedia content on the Internet. We introduce concepts such as Domain Name
Server (DNS) and HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol).
2.
DNS Based Approaches
This approach uses a modified DNS to distribute
incoming client requests to different servers in a round-robin manner or based
on a weighted classification. This allocation of client requests is done at the
time of name-to-IP address translation carried out by the DNS. We discuss
different ways of using DNS-based approach for offering scalable multimedia
services.
3.
HTTP Based Approaches
HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) offers object
redirection services as part of its protocol. HTTP redirection can be combined
with DNS-based approach too. We present the various ways in which scalable
servers can be built using this approach.
4.
Proxy Servers
Proxy servers cache objects from the main web
servers, for delivering them to clients. Proxy servers help in alleviating the
load on the main web servers. We present some approaches that can effectively
use proxy servers along with the web servers.
5.
Commercial Products and Research Projects
We analyze the features of commercial products such
as Cisco's Local Director, IBM's NetDispatcher, Akamai. We also consider
research projects and prototypes developed in this area.
6.
Scalable Data Formats
Analysis of the characteristics of MPEG/MPEG-2
video. Profiles of MPEG-2 video, spatial and temporal scalability, and layers
of MPEG-2 video stream. Use of the various layers of MPEG-2 encoded data for
adapting to available resources.
7.
Summary
We summarize the main issues in providing scalable
multimedia services on the Internet and the solutions that can be used.
Biography
notes:
Dr. B. Prabhakaran is currently with the Department of Computer
Science, University of Texas at Dallas. He is also associated with the faculty
of Computer Science Department, National University of Singapore. Before that,
he was a visiting research faculty with the Department of Computer Science,
University of Maryland, College Park. He also served as a faculty in the
Department of Computer Science, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India.
Dr B. Prabhakaran has been working in the area of multimedia systems :
multimedia databases, authoring & presentation, resource management, and
scalable web-based multimedia presentation
servers. He has published several research papers in
prestigious conferences and journals in this area.
He has served as an Associate Chair of the ACM Multimedia'2000 (November 2000, Los Angeles) and ACM Multimedia'99 conference (Florida, November 1999). He has served as guest-editor (special issue on Multimedia Authoring and Presentation) for ACM Multimedia Systems journal. He is also serving on the editorial board of Multimedia Tools and Applications journal, Kluwer Academic Publishers. He has also served as program committee member on several multimedia conferences and workshops. He has presented tutorials in ACM Multimedia and other multimedia conferences. He has filed for three patents in the field of multimedia Internet servers and multimedia authoring. He has presented tutorials in ACM Multimedia'98 and ACM Multimedia'99, ACM Multimedia'2000 on topics such as network resource management, adaptive multimedia presentations, and scalable multimedia servers. He has also presented tutorials in other multimedia conferences such as IDMS (International Conference on Distributed Multimedia Systems).
OCT01-C OBJECT-ORIENTED MODELING OF MULTIMEDIA
APPLICATIONS WITH UML - CANCELLED
MONDAY, Oct.1, 2001, 8:30 am – 12:00 pm
Authors:
|
Gregor Engels Stefan Sauer |
University of Paderborn, GERMANY |
Duration: Half-day
Intended
Audience:
Researchers as well as practitioners (i.e. software
developers) with some interest in multimedia software engineering, and
particularly in modeling multimedia applications.
Tutorial Overview:
The tutorial presents an overview on the
Unified Modeling Language (UML), discusses its appropriateness to model
multimedia applications and gives a detailed overview on the state of the art
of extensions to UML to model multimedia applications. The last topic covers
also research and practical results of the tutorial speakers.
Tutorial Description:
Object-Oriented Modeling of Multimedia
Applications with UML
1. Motivation and Objectives
In
the beginning of the 90s, the great diversity of proposed object-oriented
design notations and methods caused a lot of problems in the software
development field. In particular, due to a lacking standardized approach,
object-oriented models were hardly understandable by designers, who were not an
expert of the used, specific notation. Therefore, existing object-oriented
models were hardly reusable in projects where another notation has been chosen,
and thus one of the main advantages of an object-oriented approach were
extremely cut down. This created a strong motivation, particularly in industry,
to standardize on a single object-oriented notation. In response, the Object
Management Group (OMG) defined the Unified Modelling Language (UML), which it
adopted in 1997 as its standard notation for object-oriented analysis and
design.
While
the UML was clearly successful in unifying the different graphical notations,
it has been argued that it was less successful in providing a shared definition
of the pragmatics and semantics behind the underlying concepts. In particular,
the following issues have been noted:
*
lack of clear guidelines on which aspects of a system are to be modelled by
which diagram types,
*
lack of heuristic, pragmatic guidelines on how these diagram types are to be
actually used for the various aspects,
*
lack of precise rules on how to transform a UML description into fragments of
programming
language
code (e.g., Java) or GUI-builders, and, last but not least,
*
lack of a precise meaning (semantics) of UML-based descriptions.
The
working group of the tutorial speakers work since years in the field of
object-oriented modelling techniques and currently particularly on UML.
Specific research topics are the investigation of the usage of UML for the
development of multimedia applications and embedded real-time systems. In
particular, it has been investigated how UML can be used to model the internal
functionality of a system as well as its external user interface. In addition,
concepts have been developed on how to translate UML diagrams into
corresponding Java code or GUI builders. In cooperation with industrial
partners, UML has been deployed in real application scenarios which provided
extensive experiences on how to use UML effectively within a soft-ware
development process.
Based
on these research as well as practical experiences, the tutorial will provide
the participants
with
* an
introduction into all UML diagram types,
* a
consistent view on how to use UML to model various aspects of a system,
* an
introduction into currently proposed UML extensions to model multimedia
applications,
* an
overall process model, which covers all phases from an early problem analysis
up to an
implementation.
It
is intended that the participants will have understood all relevant language
concepts of UML,
that they are able to choose the right diagram
type for specific modelling purposes and that they are able to model at least
small multimedia applications with the presented extended version of
UML.
Contents:
Part 1: History of UML (G. Engels)
Part 2: UML Diagram Types (G. Engels
Part 3: Unified Development Process (G. Engels)
Part 4: UML extensions for Multimedia
Applications (St. Sauer)
Part 5: Code Generation (St. Sauer)
Part 6: Summary and Conclusions (G. Engels)
Biographical Notes:
Prof. Dr. Gregor Engels has the chair for database and information systems at the University of
Paderborn since 1997. He works since more than
10 years in the field of object-oriented model-ling techniques. He gave
tutorials on this topic at several national and international conferences
(ESEC 91, ESEC 93, ICDE 93, ICDE 94, CAiSE‘99,
VL‘99, FDL’2000, VL’2000), as well as
industrial
seminars for different companies in Germany. His research interests are
object-oriented modelling concepts, process modelling techniques, and
multimedia software engineering.
Dipl.-Inform.
Stefan Sauer studied computer science at the University of
Oldenburg. He received his diploma in computer science in 1997 and works as
research assistant in the group of Prof. Engels since 1997. His research
interests are extensions of UML for modeling of multi-media applications. He
gives regularly industrial seminars on UML and Java.
MONDAY, Oct. 1,2001, 1:30 pm-5:00 pm
Authors:
|
Ralf
Steinmetz Ralf
Ackermann |
Darmstadt Univ.
of Technology, GERMANY |
Duration: Half-day
Objectives:
IP-Telephony
is a challenging new application area for the use of multimedia protocols and
applications and influences research and deployment activities in a number of
fields. For understanding and using it
we need a knowledge covering basic network and QoS mechanisms, IP-Telephony
specific protocols as well as the interactions with other components (such as
directory services, databases or providers for additional services). Within the tutorial we give a comprehensive
overview - guiding the listener from the basic mechanisms towards the state of
the art and current research topics.
Tutorial Overview:
The tutorial will be structured as follows:
* Basic connectivity
Audio sampling and coding, RTP streaming,
network technologies and their impact, QoS
support by adequate means (Over-Provisioning and Adequate Network Engineering/Traffic Management and/vs.
Reservation or Dedicated Handling of Data Streams)
* IP-Telephony Signaling Protocols
H.323 and SIP protocol family, features and
limitations, interaction, future development, MGCP. An important part of the
tutorial will cover gatewaying between the alternative protocols.
* Operation
Management, Security Issues both for Privacy and
Trust but also for the Interaction with Security Infrastructure components like
Firewalls
* Value Added Services
New communication paradigms and the trend
towards a "Ubiquitous Seamless Communication" - we expect this to be
the area with the largest potential once the "basic technical
preconditions" are properly met.
We will describe combinations of IP telephony services with Presence Services
and Instant Messaging.
We
end the tutorial with a "Primer for enabling IP-Telephony at your
site" based on the experiences gathered during the pre-selection and
evaluation of solutions for and in a larger scale Field Trial (Replacement of
the PBX for the Darmstadt Scientific Institutions -comprising about 6000
telephones to be replaced and a planned and expected number of up to 2000
IP-phones).
Biographical Notes:
Ralf Steinmetz is Professor at the Departments of
"Electrical Engineering and Information Technology" and
"Computer Science" at the Darmstadt University of Technology. His
research group in multimedia communication was newly founded in 1996. Since
then 18 researchers have joined the KOM staff. Since January 1997 he has been
the Director of the GMD (German - National Research Center for Information
Technology) institute IPSI (Integrated Publications- and Information Systems
Institute) in Darmstadt. About 100 full time employees work at his GMD
institute. In 1999 he founded the httc (Hessian Telemedia Technology Competence
Center) with focus on applied networked multimedia services being applied to education
projects. He was among the core
multimedia group which initiated the ACM/Springer Multimeda Journal and the
IEEE Multimedia. He has served as editor and member of the editorial advisory
board of several journals and as chair, vice chair, and member of numerous
program and steering committees for workshops and conferences (recently as
general co-chair of the ACM Multimedia'98 and chair of the itg/GI KIVS'99
-communications in distributed Systems'99 in Darmstadt. He wrote the first
in-depth technical book on multimedia systems, recent version published in
German in 2000; a co-authored and restructured edition in English published in
1995 (up-coming version by end of 2001).
Ralf Ackermann works as Scientific Staff member at the
department KOM (Prof. Ralf Steinmetz) at Darmstadt University of Technology.
He's doing a PhD on the field of IP telephony and deals with the topic of
providing "Seamless Communication Services" by using signalling,
media and value added services gateways. He also coordinates the IP telephony
field trial for the Darmstadt scientific region.
OCT01-E SMIL2.0: THE NEXT WAVE OF MULTIMEDIA ON THE WEB
MONDAY, Oct. 1,2001, 1:30 pm-5:00 pm
Author:
|
Lloyd Rutledge |
CWI, The Netherlands |
Duration: Half-day
Intended
Audience:
The tutorial is intended for content developers who
have created HTML documents or have used tools such as Macromedia Director or
Authorware. Multimedia designers, web-page
creators, creators of interface prototypes such as user interface designers,
human factors practitioners and industrial designers will also benefit from
this course. It can also be followed usefully by participants unfamiliar with
existing tools and environments. The level is introductory and expects
knowledge of the Web at a user's level, not necessarily that of an HTML author.
Familiarity with basic HTML constructs is desirable, though not necessary.
Objectives:
The goal of the tutorial is to explain the concepts
that form the basis of the SMIL language and to provide sufficient detail on
the language itself so that participants can create their own simple
presentations. Participants will also understand the underlying issues of
temporal and spatial layout and the complexity of creating links within
multimedia. They will also be able to use available tools to play and create
SMIL presentations.
Tutorial
Overview:
SMIL 2.0 specifies interactive multimedia on the
Web. It will be released soon as a W3C recommendation, but is already the
subject of much attention from major players. This version extends SMIL 1.0, a
W3C recommendation since June 1998. SMIL 1.0 already has a major presence on
the Web as the integration format for the RealPlayer media browser. It also is
supported by QuickTime 4.1, the GRiNS editor and player, and several other
players. This tutorial presents SMIL 1.0 and 2.0 and the tools for them.
Description:
SMIL 1.0 is a W3C recommendation, approved in June 1998
and now a strong presence on the Web, which provides a vendor-independent,
declarative language for hypermedia presentations on the Web. With at least
three players currently available, and with more and more presentations being
posted on the Web, SMIL promises to do for interactive multimedia what HTML did
for hypertext: bring it into every living room with an easy-to-author, readily
implementable format
and easily accessible players for it.
SMIL 2.0 is nearing completion and is expected to be
released by the W3C in the coming months -- in time for Multimedia 2001. The
specification document is 10 times the size of SMIL 1.0, offering many new,
rich features and constructs. SMIL 2.0 also has the backing of major industrial
players, such as Microsoft, RealNetworks and Macromedia.
Before describing the details of the SMIL language,
the tutorial first presents an overview of the components required in a
hypermedia document description language. The SMIL language includes features
for specifying the media items included in a document, referred to with URL's,
how these are temporally and spatially related to one another, and how links
can be specified within the multimedia environment. Alternates for different
data formats for the heterogeneous web environment are also provided.
The goal of the tutorial is to explain the concepts
that form the basis of the SMIL language and to provide sufficient detail on
the language itself so that participants can create their own simple
presentations. Participants will also understand the underlying issues of
temporal and spatial layout and the complexity of creating links within
multimedia. The tutorial also describe the use of the major SMIL
implementations: the RealPlayer, the GRiNS authoring environment, and HTML+SMIL
on Internet Explorer.
Biographical
Notes:
Lloyd Rutledge is a researcher at CWI. His research
involves adaptable hypermedia, and standards for it such as SMIL. He received
his Sc.D. from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he worked with the
Distributed Multimedia Systems Laboratory (DMSL) on developing the HyOctane
HyTime-based hypermedia environment.
Dr. Rutledge is a member of the W3C working group that developed SMIL. He has given this SMIL tutorial at many
venues including WWW10, WWW9 and WWW8, ACM Multimedia 99, Multimedia Modeling
2000 and ACM Hypertext 2000, 99 and 98.
He is also co-author of "SMIL: Multimedia on the Web", to be
published this year by Pearson Education.