Slashdot Mirror
Will Video Surfing Become Reality?
alinv writes "Australia's CSIRO has developed a multi-media browsing tool callled CMWeb, which makes surfing audio and video content as esy as text (view a screenshot here). The tool, called Continuous Media Web (CMWeb), enables user to activate a link within a video or audio file,and be taken to a related clip in another file, and then return to the original or follow further links into other subject areas, in much the same way they currently do with Web pages."
This is rather like flash, but for video content rather than animated vector graphics. Maybe not even that. More like a video file + markup much like something which could be played in a specialised player, but superimposing links? Doesn't seem that revolutionary to me, the DVD format already allows for something like this - albeit in a more rigid form.
However, the reason this is particularly interesting to the Slashdot crowd is that
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
From the screenshot, it looks like it might be possible to forgo the audio and video, and just read the texts and click on the link. It looks like the web, repackaged to include visual aides.
I expect it'd be great for online tutorials, though.
What's this Submit thingy do?
well, from what I gather, this is not so much a way of surfing the net with video as it is a way to find related audio/video content. It kinda strikes me as a relational database, but all the objects are audio and video.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
I don't see anything here I didn't already saw in the MPEG-4 specifications years ago.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
How do I activate a link in an audio file?
On a visible interface (video or GUI) I can think about something that I can activate by a sort of "point & click" interface. But on an audio stream?
Especially since audio is depending on time. Just think that you want to follow a link on the "bottom" of an audio file... should I wait until the link somehow passes by?
Or do I have to think of something interactive with sppech input like
Computer: "This article was first posted on Slashdot..."
Me: "Stop here and tell me more about that slashdot thing"
Sounds a little bit like "Star Trek" to me.
I don't think this would be useful to anyone except people who make online encyclopedias. Many online encyclopedias use a video-text format for conveying multimedia information to the user, but this wouldn't be feasible to the average user.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
This would really suck with video, where you have to notice the links at the right time. And what about audio? Will the other pages continue making noises quietly in the background? Wait for their turn? overpower anything else I may be listening?
In Murphy We Turst
i am sure we will have enough advance technology to making video surfing a reality, but what about human brain's capacity to process and digest the information given to us in this mode. we are already facing a Information Overload as it is. Moreover the brain's capacity is becomming smaller, due to in-digestion of information (your brain and stomach work in a similar fashion,to process and retain information), and less time for thinking and comptemplation. :)
A good book to read about mind and information processing is Steven Pinker's "How Mind Works"
And I for one do not wanna see any pop-up banners in video surfing.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Why not create a simple XML language that could be associed with the embedded video on a webpage? Example:
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Sorry to reply to a Funny with a serious comment, but just FYI, places do make videogames for the blind. Not like you should be expected to know that.. except gamegirladvance is required reading for any videogame enthusiast.
I know you were joking, but I want my Karma, so I'm going to reiterate your post in a serious tone.
I had heard that IBM had this in it's OS/2 media player way back around the Warp 4 days. OS/2 shipped with a bunch of multimedia players and it was said that they had clickable regions in a video stream working.
;)
I never saw it but then again, I never saw OS/2 for the PPC and IT existed.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
It won't become a reality until they can build a site that delivers text/pictures that can survive a slashdotting. Seriously, this technology occupies the same realm as Flash. Used by webdesigners who do not consider the fact that some people can not, and others will not, get broadband. i.e. it will get used by entertainment companies selling entertainment to those audiences from which can can extract a fee - those rich enough. This technology has little or no bearing on useful information transfer to mass populations in the near future, and yes that is a political statement. I also remember hearing about this ages ago related to mpeg-4, but more than this, audiio/visual material unlike text has no effective way of being scanned. Sure you might develop a language to label the content (and thus make is searchable) but being able to search material does not allow you to "skim-read" as it were. Text will never die because it is the least linear format we have available. It also argueably presents the most information with the least preproduction. You won't see interactive video on the bleeding edge of news, because (like flash) no matter how much you refine the production process it will still take much longer to prepare information in that format. That said, there are some interesting applications for more "static" information.
Audio and video surfing is already here. It's called Winamp 2.91. Yeah it's got shoutcast built in and now a new thing called Internet TV which is basically Nullsoft Public Acces TV. It's starting to catch on too, there are a number of shows ranging from someone getting drive thru at taco bell to shows like Cartoon Network's Auqa Team Hunger Force. So who needs cable when you have a broadband connection.
MoRe... LaTeR... -=PJK=-