ACMMM'19: Docker-Based Evaluation Framework for Video Streaming QoE in Broadband Networks

Docker-Based Evaluation Framework for Video Streaming QoE in Broadband Networks

(Demo Paper)

https://www.acmmm.org/2019/

[PDF]

Cise Midoglu (Simula), Anatoliy Zabrovskiy (AAU), Özgü Alay (Simula), Daniel Hölbling-Inzko (Bitmovin), Carsten Griwodz (Univ. of Oslo), Christian Timmerer (AAU/Bitmovin)

Abstract: Video streaming is one of the top traffic contributors in the Internet and a frequent research subject. It is expected that streaming traffic will grow 4-fold for video globally and 9-fold for mobile video between 2017 and 2022. In this paper, we present an automatized measurement framework for evaluating video streaming QoE in operational broadband networks, using headless streaming with a Docker-based client, and a server-side implementation allowing for the use of multiple video players and adaptation algorithms. Our framework allows for integration with the MONROE testbed and Bitmovin Analytics, which bring on the possibility to conduct large-scale measurements in different networks, including mobility scenarios, and monitor different parameters in the application, transport, network, and physical layers in real-time.

Keywords: adaptive streaming, network measurements, OTT video analytics, QoE

Docker-Based Evaluation Framework for Video Streaming QoE in Broadband Networks from Christian Timmerer

ACMMM'19: Towards 6DoF HTTP Adaptive Streaming Through Point Cloud Compression

Towards 6DoF HTTP Adaptive Streaming Through Point Cloud Compression

https://www.acmmm.org/2019/

[PDF]

Jeroen van der Hooft, Tim Wauters, Filip De Turck (Ghent University - imec), Christian Timmerer, and Hermann Hellwagner (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt)

Abstract: The increasing popularity of head-mounted devices and 360° video cameras allows content providers to offer virtual reality video streaming over the Internet, using a relevant representation of the immersive content combined with traditional streaming techniques. While this approach allows the user to freely move her head, her location is fixed by the camera’s position within the scene. Recently, an increased interest has been shown for free movement within immersive scenes, referred to as six degrees of freedom. One way to realize this is by capturing objects through a number of cameras positioned in different angles, and creating a point cloud which consists of the location and RGB color of a significant number of points in the three-dimensional space. Although the concept of point clouds has been around for over two decades, it recently received increased attention by ISO/IEC MPEG, issuing a call for proposals for point cloud compression. As a result, dynamic point cloud objects can now be compressed to bit rates in the order of 3 to 55 Mb/s, allowing feasible delivery over today’s mobile networks. In this paper, we propose PCC-DASH, a standards-compliant means for HTTP adaptive streaming of scenes comprising multiple, dynamic point cloud objects. We present a number of rate adaptation heuristics which use information on the user’s position and focus, the available bandwidth, and the client’s buffer status to decide upon the most appropriate quality representation of each object. Through an extensive evaluation, we discuss the advantages and drawbacks of each solution. We argue that the optimal solution depends on the considered scene and camera path, which opens interesting possibilities for future work.

Keywords: HTTP adaptive streaming, MPEG-DASH, immersive video, point clouds, MPEG V-PCC, rate adaptation

Slides:

Towards 6DoF HTTP Adaptive Streaming Through Point Cloud Compression from Christian Timmerer

ACM Reference Format:
Jeroen van der Hooft, Tim Wauters, Filip De Turck, Christian Timmerer, and Hermann Hellwagner. 2019. Towards 6DoF HTTP Adaptive Streaming Through Point Cloud Compression. In ACM Multimedia ’19, October 21–25, 2019, Nice, France. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9 pages. https://doi.org/10. 1145/1122445

ACMMM'19 Tutorial: A Journey towards Fully Immersive Media Access

ACM Multimedia 2019

October 21-25, 2019, Nice, France

https://www.acmmm.org/2019/
[PDF]

Date/time: Monday, Oct 21, 2019, 2pm-5:30pm

Lecturers

Christian Timmerer, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt & Bitmovin, Inc.
Ali C. Begen, Ozyegin University and Networked Media

Abstract

Universal media access as proposed in the late 90s, early 2000 is now reality. Thus, we can generate, distribute, share, and consume any media content, anywhere, anytime, and with/on any device. A major technical breakthrough was the adaptive streaming over HTTP resulting in the standardization of MPEG-DASH, which is now successfully deployed in HTML5 environments thanks to corresponding media source extensions (MSE). The next big thing in adaptive media streaming is virtual reality applications and, specifically, omnidirectional (360°) media streaming, which is currently built on top of the existing adaptive streaming ecosystems. This tutorial provides a detailed overview of adaptive streaming of both traditional and omnidirectional media within HTML5 environments. The tutorial focuses on the basic principles and paradigms for adaptive streaming – both traditional and omnidirectional media – as well as on already deployed content generation, distribution, and consumption workflows. Additionally, the tutorial provides insights into standards and emerging technologies in the adaptive streaming space. Finally, the tutorial includes the latest approaches for immersive media streaming enabling 6DoF DASH through Point Cloud Compression (PCC) and concludes with open research issues and industry efforts in this domain.

Keywords: Omnidirectional media, HTTP adaptive streaming, over-the-top video, 360° video, virtual reality, immersive media access.

Slides

A Journey Towards Fully Immersive Media Access from Christian Timmerer

Learning Objectives

This tutorial consists of two main parts. In the first part, we provide a detailed overview of the HTML5 standard and show how it can be used for adaptive streaming deployments. In particular, we focus on the HTML5 video, media extensions, and multi-bitrate encoding, encapsulation and encryption workflows, and survey well-established streaming solutions. Furthermore, we present experiences from the existing deployments and the relevant de jure and de facto standards (DASH, HLS, CMAF) in this space. In the second part, we focus on omnidirectional (360) media from creation to consumption as well as first thoughts on dynamic adaptive point cloud streaming. We survey means for the acquisition, projection, coding and packaging of omnidirectional media as well as delivery, decoding and rendering methods. Emerging standards and industry practices are covered as well (OMAF, VR-IF). Both parts present some of the current research trends, open issues that need further exploration and investigation, and various efforts that are underway in the streaming industry.

Upon attending this tutorial, the participants will have an overview and understanding of the following topics:

• Principles of HTTP adaptive streaming for the Web/HTML5
• Principles of omnidirectional (360-degree) media delivery
• Content generation, distribution and consumption workflows for traditional and omnidirectional media
• Standards and emerging technologies in the adaptive streaming space
• Current and future research on traditional and omnidirectional media delivery, specifically enabling 6DoF adaptive streaming through point cloud compression

ACM Multimedia attracts attendees that are quite knowledgeable in specific areas. However, not all are experts across multiple disciplines (such as the subject matter here) and only few are familiar with what is happening in the field and standards. Thus, we believe the proposed tutorial will be of interest to this year’s attendees as much as it did in the past.

Table of Contents

Part I: The HTML5 Standard and Adaptive Streaming

• HTML5 video and media extensions
• Survey of well-established streaming solutions
• Multi-bitrate encoding, and encapsulation and encryption workflows
• The MPEG-DASH standard, Apple HLS and the developing CMAF standard
• Common issues in scaling and improving quality, multi-screen/hybrid delivery

Part II: Omnidirectional (360-degree) Media

• Acquisition, projection, coding and packaging of 360-degree video
• Delivery, decoding and rendering methods
• The developing MPEG-OMAF and MPEG-I standards
• Ongoing industry efforts, specifically towards 6DoF adaptive streaming

Speakers

Christian Timmerer received his M.Sc. (Dipl.-Ing.) in January 2003 and his Ph.D. (Dr.techn.) in June 2006 (for research on the adaptation of scalable multimedia content in streaming and constraint environments) both from the Alpen-Adria-Universität (AAU) Klagenfurt. He joined the AAU in 1999 (as a system administrator) and is currently an Associate Professor at the Institute of Information Technology (ITEC) within the Multimedia Communication Group. His research interests include immersive multimedia communication, streaming, adaptation, Quality of Experience, and Sensory Experience. He was the general chair of WIAMIS 2008, QoMEX 2013, MMSys 2016, and PV 2018 and has participated in several EC-funded projects, notably DANAE, ENTHRONE, P2P-Next, ALICANTE, SocialSensor, COST IC1003 QUALINET, and ICoSOLE. He also participated in ISO/MPEG work for several years, notably in the area of MPEG- 21, MPEG-M, MPEG-V, and MPEG-DASH where he also served as standard editor. In 2013, he cofounded Bitmovin (http://www.bitmovin.com/) to provide professional services around MPEG-DASH where he holds the position of the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) – Head of Research and Standardization. He is a senior member of IEEE and member of ACM, specifically IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Communications Society, and ACM SIGMM. Dr. Timmerer was a guest editor of three special issues for the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC) and currently serves as associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. Further information available at http://blog.timmerer.com.

Ali C. Begen is the co-founder of Networked Media, a technology company that offers consulting services to industrial, legal and academic institutions in the IP video space. He has been a research and development engineer since 2001, and has broad experience in mathematical modeling, performance analysis, optimization, standards development, intellectual property and innovation. Between 2007 and 2015, he was with the Video and Content Platforms Research and Advanced Development Group at Cisco, where he designed and developed algorithms, protocols, products and solutions in the service provider and enterprise video domains. Currently, he is also affiliated with Ozyegin University, where he is teaching and advising students in the computer science department. Ali has a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Georgia Tech. To date, he received a number of academic and industry awards, and was granted 30+ US patents. He held editorial positions in leading magazines and journals, and served in the organizing committee of several international conferences and workshops in the field. He is a senior member of both the IEEE and ACM. In 2016, he was elected distinguished lecturer by the IEEE Communications Society, and in 2018, he was re-elected for another two-year term. More details are at http://ali.begen.net.

Over-the-Top Content Delivery: State of the Art and Challenges Ahead

Tutorial at ACM Multimedia 2014

November 3-7, 2014

Orlando, Florida, USA

http://acmmm.org/2014/

Abstract: In this tutorial we present state of the art and challenges ahead in over-the-top content delivery. It particular, the goal of this tutorial is to provide an overview of adaptive media delivery, specifically in the context of HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) including the recently ratified MPEG-DASH standard. The main focus of the tutorial will be on the common problems in HAS deployments such as client design, QoE optimization, multi-screen and hybrid delivery scenarios, and synchronization issues. For each problem, we will examine proposed solutions along with their pros and cons. In the last part of the tutorial, we will look into the open issues and review the work-in-progress and future research directions.

Slides:

Over the Top Content Delivery: State of the Art and Challenges Ahead from Christian Timmerer

Biography of Presenters

Christian Timmerer is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Information Technology (ITEC), Multimedia Communication Group (MMC), Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria. His research interests include immersive multimedia communication, streaming, adaptation, and Quality of Experience (QoE). He was the general chair of QoMEX’13, WIAMIS’08, AVSTP2P’10 (co-located with ACMMM’10), WoMAN’11 (co-located with ICME’11), and TPC co-chair of QoMEX’12. He has participated in several EC-funded projects, notably DANAE, ENTHRONE, P2P-Next, ALICANTE, SocialSensor, and ICoSOLE. He is an Associate Editor for IEEE Computer Science Computing Now, Area Editor for Elsevier Signal Processing: Image Communication, Review Board Member of IEEE MMTC, editor of ACM SIGMM Records, and member of ACM SIGMM Open Source Software Committee. He also participated in ISO/MPEG work for several years, notably in the area of MPEG-21, MPEG-M, MPEG-V, and DASH (incl. DASH Industry Forum). He received his PhD in 2006 from the Klagenfurt University. Follow him on http://www.twitter.com/timse7 and subscribe to his blog http://blog.timmerer.com. 

Ali C. Begen is with the Video and Content Platforms Research and Advanced Development Group at Cisco. His interests include networked entertainment, Internet multimedia, transport protocols and content delivery. Ali is currently working on architectures and protocols for next-generation video transport and distribution over IP networks. He is an active contributor in the IETF and MPEG, and has given a number of keynotes, tutorials and guest lectures in these areas. Ali holds a Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Georgia Tech. He received the Best Student-paper Award at IEEE ICIP 2003, the Most-cited Paper Award from Elsevier Signal Processing: Image Communication in 2008, and the Best-paper Award at Packet Video Workshop 2012. Ali has been an editor for the Consumer Communications and Networking series in the IEEE Communications Magazine since 2011 and an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia since 2013. He served as a general co-chair for ACM Multimedia Systems 2011 and Packet Video Workshop 2013. He is a senior member of the IEEE and a senior member of the ACM. Further information on Ali’s projects, publications, presentations and professional activities can be found at http://ali.begen.net.

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP: From Content Creation to Consumption

This is the tutorial presentation during this years' ACM Multimedia 2012 presented by myself and Carsten Griwodz from Simula Research, Norway.

Abstract: In this tutorial we present dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP ranging from content creation to consumption. It particular, it provides an overview of the recently ratified MPEG-DASH standard, how to create content to be delivered using DASH, its consumption, and the evaluation thereof with respect to competing industry solutions. The tutorial can be roughly clustered into three parts. In part I we will provide an introduction to DASH, part II covers content creation, delivery, and consumption, and, finally, part III deals with the evaluation of existing (open source) MPEG-DASH implementations compared to state-of-art deployed industry solutions.

Acknowledgment: FP7 ICT SocialSensor, FP7 ICT ALICANTE

Top 10 Blog Posts

1. HTTP Streaming of MPEG Media: My first article in this series which I've started after the MPEG CfP has been issued that lead to the standardization of DASH.
2. MMSys'11 Special Session on MMT/DASH: the CfP for a special session I've organized.
3. MPEG news: a report from the 93rd meeting in Geneva, right after the responses to the HTTP streaming CfP has been evaluated.
4. MPEG advances DASH towards completion which is the MPEG press release after the 94th meeting in Guangzhou.
5. Open Source Scalable Video Coding (SVC) Software where I have received quite a few comments ;-)
6. MPEG Media Transport: Basically the same as #1 but a different scope. However, it seems the readers are more interested in HTTP streaming than media transport in general.
7. Vision and Requirements for High-Performance Video Coding which has been renamed now to High-Efficiency Video Coding.
8. DASH provides an overview about the Draft International Standard which is publicly available.
9. MPEG DASH vs. W3C WebTV which is still a hop topic and worth following on both sides...
10. Immersive Future Media Technologies: From 3D Video to Sensory Experience: I'm happy having this one in my top ten. It's the summary of a tutorial I had at ACM Multimedia 2010 together with Karsten Müller.

In general, most of the readers are very much interested in HTTP streaming / DASH / MMT followed by video coding (SVC/HEVC/3DVC) and the Sensory Experience stuff I've started some time ago.

Thanks again for visiting my blog and don't hesitate to leave a comment here and there. I'd love to read your thoughts and feedback.

Review: ACM Workshop on Advanced video streaming techniques for peer-to-peer networks and social networking

On the 29th of October we had our workshop co-located with ACM Multimedia 2010. The workshop was partly sponsored by the project “ARACHNE: Advanced video streaming techniques for peer-to-peer networks,” funded by the Italian Ministry for Education and Research (www.diegm.uniud.it/arachne), and partly by the EC-funded “P2P-Next” project (www.p2p-next.org).

One of the highlights of the programme was definitely the keynote from George Wright, Head of Prototyping, BBC Research and Development:

P2P-Next Experiences from a broadcaster's view

Some of the presentations from the workshop received so far can be found here. Impressions from the workshop can be found below.


Another highlight was the demo session featuring P2P-Next's NextShareTV, a set-top box demonstrating live P2P streaming over the open, unmanaged Internet. The demo was running very smoothly and we received a lot of interesting feedback.

Finally, the best paper was selected among the following candidates:

• Access Control to BitTorrent swarms using Closed Swarms by Keith Mitchell, Njaal Borch, Ingar Arntzen, Dusan Gabrijelcic
• Improving Quality-of-Experience for Multiple Description Video Transmission in Peer-To-Peer Networks by Simone Milani, Giancarlo Calvagno
• A Novel Cache Optimization Algorithm and Protocol for Video Streaming in Pure Peer-to-Peer Networks by Carlo Giulietti, Dan Schonfeld, Rashid Ansari
• P2P Group Communication with Layer-Aware FEC by Yago Sánchez, Cornelius Hellge, Thomas Schierl, Thomas Wiegand
• P2P streaming with LT codes: a prototype experimentation by Andrea Magnetto, Rossano Gaeta, Marco Grangetto, Matteo Sereno

And the best paper award goes to ...

A Novel Cache Optimization Algorithm and Protocol for Video Streaming in Pure Peer-to-Peer Networks by Carlo Giulietti, Dan Schonfeld, Rashid Ansari

Finally, on behalf of the organizers, I'd like to thank all who contributed to the success of this workshop. I personally hope that you enjoyed the carefully crafted programme and 

Program for ACM Workshop on Advanced Video Streaming Techniques for Peer-to-Peer Networks and Social Networking

Workshop website: http://www.p2pstreaming.eu/
Workshop date/location: 29th October 2010, Florence, Italy (co-located with ACMMM'10)
ACM Multimedia: http://www.acmmm10.org/

Workshop presentations: No central server will be used for oral presentations at the Conference Workshops. Authors can either use their own laptops or the PC available in each Workshop room (Windows based machine). Authors are invited to check this program page to see the time slots allocated for oral presentations. For poster and demo sessions at the Workshops, boards are available that can hold a poster up to 100 cm width x 250 cm length (3.28 ft x 8.2 ft). 

Finally, we also invite you to refer to the Conference web page (http://www.acmmm10.org/) for any further information about venue, travel, weather, accommodations, restaurants, and so on.

Final Program:

09:00-09:15: Welcome Address by the Chairs
09:15-10:00: Keynote Address
Session Chair: Christian Timmerer (Klagenfurt University, Austria)
Audio/visual content and metadata delivered over the open Internet using P2P-Next: some experiences from a broadcaster's perspective by George Wright, Head of Prototyping, BBC Research and Development

10:00-10:30: Short presentation of posters and demos

10:30-11:00: Coffee break

11:00-12:00: Session 1 - Networking and Streaming
Session Chair: Christian Timmerer (Klagenfurt University, Austria)

• P2P Group Communication with Layer-Aware FEC by Yago Sánchez; Cornelius Hellge; Thomas Schierl; Thomas Wiegand (Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications - Heinrich-Hertz-Institute, Germany)
• P2P streaming with LT codes: a prototype experimentation by Andrea Magnetto; Rossano Gaeta; Marco Grangetto; Matteo Sereno (Universita' di Torino, Italy)
• Peer-to-Peer streaming based on network coding improves packet jitter by Riccardo Bernardini; Roberto Cesco Fabbro; Roberto Rinaldo (University of Udine, Italy)

12:00-13:00: Session 2 - Application
Session Chair: Pascal Frossard (EPFL, Switzerland)

• A Novel Cache Optimization Algorithm and Protocol for Video Streaming in Pure Peer-to-Peer Networks by Carlo Giulietti; Dan Schonfeld; Rashid Ansari (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA)
• Access Control to BitTorrent swarms using Closed Swarms by Keith Mitchell (Lancaster University, United Kingdom); Njaal Borch (Norut IT, Norway); Ingar Arntzen (Norut IT, Norway); Dusan Gabrijelcic (Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia)
• Advanced Prefetching and Upload Strategies for P2P Video-on-Demand by Osama Abboud; Konstantin Pussep; Markus Müller; Aleksandra Kovacevic; Ralf Steinmetz (Technische Universitaet Darmstadt, Germany)

13:00-14:30: Lunch

14:30-15:30: Session 3 - Design
Session Chair: Keith Mitchell (University of Lancaster, UK)

• A Hybrid Approach to Modeling End-to-End Delay in P2P Networks by Philipp Berndt; Dominic Battré; Odej Kao (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)
• Design and Implementation of a Generic Library for P2P Streaming by Luca Abeni; Csaba Kiraly; Alessandro Russo; Marco Biazzini; Renato Lo Cigno (University of Trento, Italy)
• Design and Evaluation of an Optimized Overlay Topology for a Single Operator Video Streaming Service by Stefano Giordano (University of Pisa, Italy); Rosario G. Garroppo (University of Pisa, Italy); Stella Spagna (University of Pisa, Italy); Saverio Niccolini (NEC Europe Ltd., Germany); Jan Seedorf (NEC Europe Ltd., Germany)

15:30-16:00: Coffee break

16:00-18:00: Session 4 - Posters and Demos
Session Chair: Gabriella Olmo (Politecnico di Torino, Italy)
Posters:

• An Analytical Approach to Model Adaptive Video Streaming and Delivery by Razib Iqbal; Shervin Shirmohammadi (University of Ottawa, Canada)
• Consistent Image Decoding from Multiple Lossy Versions by Marco Dalai; Serena Malavasi; Riccardo Leonardi (University of Brescia, Italy)
• Improving Quality-of-Experience for Multiple Description Video Transmission in Peer-To-Peer Networks by Simone Milani; Giancarlo Calvagno (University of Padova, Italy)
• Knapsack Problem-based Piece-Picking Algorithms for Layered Content in Peer-to-Peer Networks by Michael Eberhard (Klagenfurt University, Austria); Tibor Szkaliczki (Computer and Automation Research Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary); Hermann Hellwagner (Klagenfurt University, Austria); Laszlo Szobonya (Computer and Automation Research Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary); Christian Timmerer (Klagenfurt University, Austria)
• MixNStream: Multi-Source Video Distribution with Stream Mixers by Philip Chun Ho Yuen; Gary Chan (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, P.R. China)
• Three Highly Available Data Streaming Techniques and Their Tradeoffs by Sumita Barahmand; Shahram Ghandeharizadeh; Anurag Ojha; Jason Yap (USC, USA)

Demos: (tentative)

Closed Swarms by Njaal Borch (Norut IT, Norway)

Abstract: In the search for commercial opportunities within online media distribution, Closed Swarms has been designed to provide content providers with a flexible, distributed authentication mechanism for P2P media distribution. Closed Swarms allow the provider control of bandwidth costs, yet it can enable new business models which might be better suited for the Internet Age, such as freemium solutions or added benefits for paying customers. We will demonstrate how Closed Swarms can be used to provide a free, non-guaranteed community service while logged-in users are provided with a full VOD experience.

Visualizing and Reducing Wait Delay in Periodic Butterfly Communication by Philipp Berndt (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)

Abstract: Butterfly graphs are probably best known from their use in the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm. A different use is in P2P VoIP Conferencing, where each node combines the audio streams it receives, before forwarding the data to the next stage. Dead time between the reception and the relaying of audio data adds up along the data paths to an overall latency that impairs the communication experience. This wait delay heavily depends on the send phase offsets between the nodes. Our demonstration shows how this problem can be interactively visualized and studied, what relationships exist and which methods can be employed to minimize overall wait delay.

Developing P2P Streaming Applications with GRAPES by Luca Abeni (University of Trento, Italy)

Abstract: In this demonstration, it will be shown how to use the GRAPES library to build a simple P2P application, either single-threaded or multi-threaded (the demo application will show how the GRAPES API allows to change the structure of the application from single-threaded to multi-threaded by simply modifying the main application loop). It will also be shown how to easily change the implementation of a GRAPES module (the peer sampler), and the impact of such a change on some performance metrics will be evaluated.

NextShareTV demo by P2P-Next (http://www.p2p-next.eu)

Abstract: The NextShareTV is a Set-top-box confirming to the NextShare platform, developed as part of the P2P-Next project. As a NextShare device, it collaborates with NextSharePC implementations as well, bridging the TV set and the PC in a single content swarm.

18:00-18:30: Best Paper Aware + Closing

Immersive Future Media Technologies: From 3D Video to Sensory Experience

--tutorial to be held at ACM Multimedia 2010, Oct 25th, Morning, Florence, Italy

--download as PDF

For registration details, please consult ACM Multimedia 2010 Web site!

Instructors: Karsten Müller (Fraunhofer/Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, Berlin) and Christian Timmerer (Klagenfurt University, Austria)

Abstract: The past decade has witnessed a significant increase in the research efforts around the Quality of Experience (QoE) which is generally referred to as a human-centric paradigm for the Quality of a Service (QoS) as perceived by the (end) user. As it puts the end user in the center stage, it may have various dimensions and one dimension recently gained momentum is 3D video. Another dimension aims at going beyond 3D and promises advanced user experience through sensory effects, both introduced briefly in the following.

3D Video: Stereo and Multi-View Video Technology
3D related media technologies have recently developed from pure research-oriented work towards applications and products. 3D content is now being produced on a wider scale and first 3D applications have been standardized, such as multi-view video coding for 3D Blu Ray disks. This part of the tutorial starts with an overview on 3D in the form of stereo video based systems, which are currently being commercialized. Here, stereo formats and associated coding are introduced. This technology is used for 3D cinema applications and mobile 3DTV environments. For the latter, user requirements and profiling will be introduced as a form to assess user quality of experience. For 3D home entertainment, glasses-free multi-view displays are required, as more than one user will watch 3D content. For such displays, the current stereo solutions need to be extended. Therefore, new activities in 3D video are introduced. These 3D solutions will develop a generic 3D video format with color and supplementary geometry data, e.g. depth maps, and associated coding and rendering technology for any multi-view display, independent of the number of views. As such technology is also developed in international consortia, the most prominent, like the 3D@HOME consortium, the EU 3D, Immersive, Interactive Media Cluster and the 3D video activities in ISO-MPEG are introduced.

Advanced User Experience through Sensory Effects
This part of the tutorial addresses a novel approach for increasing the user experience – beyond 3D – through sensory effects. The motivation behind this work is that the consumption of multimedia assets may stimulate also other senses than vision or audition, e.g., olfaction, mechanoreception, equilibrioception, or thermoception that shall lead to an enhanced, unique user experience. This could be achieved by annotating the media resources with metadata (currently defined by ISO/MPEG as part of the MPEG-V standard) providing so-called sensory effects that steer appropriate devices capable of rendering these effects (e.g., fans, vibration chairs, ambient lights, perfumer, water sprayers, fog machines, etc.). In particular, we will review the concepts and details of the forthcoming MPEG-V standard and present our prototype architecture for the generation, transport, decoding and use of sensory effects. Furthermore, we will present details and results of a series of formal subjective quality assessments which confirm that the concept of sensory effects is a vital tool for enhancing the user experience.

Course Outline
Introduction and Overview (~10min.)
3D Video: Stereo and Multi-View Video Technology (~90min)

• User Requirements for 3D video technologies
• Stereo Video solutions for 3D cinema and mobile applications
• User experience and profiling for mobile 3DTV
• Format description and coding for stereo and multi-view video technology
• Depth-enhanced 3D video solutions for 3D home entertainment

Advanced User Experience through Sensory Effects (~90min)

• MPEG-V: context and objectives including an overview of all parts.
• In depth review of Part 3 of MPEG-V entitled Sensory Information.
• A test-bed for the quality of multimedia experience evaluation of sensory effects and demonstration.
• How to improve the Quality of Experience through sensory effects? Results from first subjective experiments.
• Conclusions and future work.

Intended Audience
Intermediate, specifically, graduate students and researchers interested in 3D video and sensory experiences.

Biography of Presenters

Karsten Müller received the Dipl.-Ing. and Dr.-Ing. degree from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, in 1997 and 2006 respectively. In 1993 he spent one year studying Electronics and Communication Engineering at Napier University of Edinburgh/Scotland, including a half-year working period at Integrated Communication Systems Inc. in Westwick near Cambridge/England. In this working period he developed software for voice mail systems and statistical analysis of caller data. In 1996 he joined the Heinrich-Hertz-Institute (HHI) Berlin, Image Processing Department, were he is a project coordinator for European projects in the field of 3D media technology. He also co-chairs the European 3D Media Cluster, which serves as a contact gateway for information exchange between the associated European projects and international 3D media activities.
His research interests include motion and disparity estimation, 3D media representation and coding, 3D graphics-based scene reconstruction with multi-texture surfaces, and 3D metadata and content description. He has been actively involved in MPEG activities, standardizing the multi-view description for MPEG-7, the view-dependent multi-texturing methods for the 3D scene representation in MPEG4-AFX and contributing to the multi-view video coding process in MPEG4-MVC and 3D Video. In recent projects he was involved in research and development of traffic surveillance systems and visualization of multiple-view video, 3D scene reconstruction, object segmentation, tracking and 3D reconstruction, 3D scene and object representation and interactive user navigation in 3D environments. Currently, he is a Project Manager for European projects in the field of 3D video technology and multimedia content description. He is senior member of the IEEE.

Christian Timmerer received his M.Sc. (Dipl.-Ing.) in January 2003 and his Ph.D. (Dr.techn.) in June 2006 (for research on the adaptation of scalable multimedia content in streaming and constraint environments) both from the Klagenfurt University. He joined the Klagenfurt University in 1999 and is currently a Assistant Professor (Ass.-Prof.) at the Department of Information Technology (ITEC) – Multimedia Communication Group. His research interests include the transport of multimedia content, multimedia adaptation in constrained and streaming environments, distributed multimedia adaptation, and QoS/QoE. He has published more than 50 papers (incl. book chapters and tutorials) in these areas and the general chair of WIAMIS2008. Finally, he is an editorial board member of the Encyclopedia of Multimedia, ACM/Springer International Journal on Multimedia Tools and Applications (MTAP), and associate editor for IEEE Computer Science Computing Now.
He has been actively participating in several EC-funded projects, notably the FP6-IST-DANAE (2004-2006), FP6-IST-ENTHRONE (2006-2008), FP7-ICT-P2P-Next (2008-2012), and FP7-ICT-ALICANTE (2010-2013) projects. Dr. Timmerer participated in the work of ISO/MPEG for several years, notably as the head of the Austrian delegation, coordinator of several core experiments, co-chair of several ad-hoc groups, and as an editor for Parts 7 and 8 of MPEG-21, Digital Item Adaptation and Reference Software for which he received ISO/IEC certificates. His current contributions are in the area of the MPEG Extensible Middleware (MXM), MPEG-V (Media Context and Control), Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT), and MPEG Media Transport (MMT) for which (i.e., MXM and MPEG-V) he also serves as an editor. Publications and MPEG contributions can be found under http://research.timmerer.com.

List of accepted papers for ACM Workshop on Advanced Video Streaming Techniques for Peer-to-Peer Networks and Social Networking

ACM Workshop on Advanced Video Streaming Techniques for Peer-to-Peer Networks and Social Networking

[Web] [Blog]

We received a huge number of high-quality papers to this workshop but only the best of the best could be accepted. The review process was very competitive this year. In particular, we accepted 15 out of 30 papers.

Accepted papers (in alphabetic order by title):

1. "A Hybrid Approach to Modeling End-to-End Delay in P2P Networks" by Philipp Berndt; Dominic Battré; Odej Kao
2. "A Novel Cache Optimization Algorithm and Protocol for Video Streaming in Pure Peer-to-Peer Networks" by Carlo Giulietti; Dan Schonfeld; Rashid Ansari
3. "Access Control to BitTorrent swarms using Closed Swarms" by Keith Mitchell; Njaal Borch; Ingar Arntzen; Dusan Gabrijelcic
4. "Advanced Prefetching and Upload Strategies for P2P Video-on-Demand" by Osama Abboud; Konstantin Pussep; Markus Müller; Aleksandra Kovacevic; Ralf Steinmetz
5. "An Analytical Approach to Model Adaptive Video Streaming and Delivery" by Razib Iqbal; Shervin Shirmohammadi
6. "Consistent Image Decoding from Multiple Lossy Versions" by Marco Dalai; Serena Malavasi; Riccardo Leonardi
7. "Design and Evaluation of an Optimized Overlay Topology for a Single Operator Video Streaming Service" by Stefano Giordano; Rosario G. Garroppo; Stella Spagna; Saverio Niccolini; Jan Seedorf
8. "Design and Implementation of a Generic Library for P2P Streaming" by Luca Abeni; Csaba Kiraly; Alessandro Russo; Marco Biazzini; Renato Lo Cigno
9. "Improving Quality-of-Experience for Multiple Description Video Transmission in Peer-To-Peer Networks" by Simone Milani; Giancarlo Calvagno
10. "Knapsack Problem-based Piece-Picking Algorithms for Layered Content in Peer-to-Peer Networks" by Michael Eberhard; Tibor Szkaliczki; Hermann Hellwagner; Laszlo Szobonya; Christian Timmerer
11. "MixNStream: Multi-Source Video Distribution with Stream Mixers" by Philip Chun Ho Yuen; Gary Chan
12. "P2P Group Communication with Layer-Aware FEC" by Yago Sánchez; Cornelius Hellge; Thomas Schierl; Thomas Wiegand
13. "P2P streaming with LT codes: a prototype experimentation" by Andrea Magnetto; Rossano Gaeta; Marco Grangetto; Matteo Sereno
14. "Peer-to-Peer streaming based on network coding improves packet jitter" by Riccardo Bernardini; Roberto Cesco Fabbro; Roberto Rinaldo
15. "Three Highly Available Data Streaming Techniques and Their Tradeoffs" by Sumita Barahmand; Shahram Ghandeharizadeh; Anurag Ojha; Jason Yap

ACM Workshop on Advanced Video Streaming Techniques for Peer-to-Peer Networks and Social Networking

Camere-ready deadline extension: July 26, 2010
Workshop held within ACM Multimedia, 25-29 October 2010, Firenze, Italy

http://www.p2pstreaming.eu
[PDF | TXT]

Peer-to-peer (P2P) is a promising technology for video streaming, and offers advantages in terms of robustness, re-configurability and scalability.  In this context, social networks and social services are emerging as a potential new driver for content delivery networks. Specifically, social networks potentially provide a new level of understanding and knowledge related to the interaction between people within a virtual space. Many emerging multimedia based services and applications have started to exploit the ‘social graph’ in new ways for establishing a basis for social recommendations, filtering etc.). As yet, one unexplored area of research relates to the exploiting the social graph for informing adaptive behaviour in P2P-based multimedia systems. On the other hand, the P2P video technology is still challenging, due to the need of reducing start-time and churn-induced instability, to the asymmetry of residential broadband connections, and to high packet loss rates due to router congestion and transmission errors on the physical network, node departure from the P2P overlay, strict timing out due to real time visualization. The lack of guarantee about the actual delivery of the data may cause drops in the reproduction quality and service outages. The workshop objective is to solicit novel contributions on all aspects of P2P-based video coding, streaming, and content distribution which is
informed by social networks.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to

• Innovative P2P-based video streaming solutions
• P2P-based social media content distribution networks
• Advanced video coding techniques for real-time P2P applications: layered/scalable video coding, multiple description coding, distributed source coding
• Identification and design of proper metrics for performance evaluation and monitoring including Quality of Service/Experience
• Content and context analysis and modelling for P2P-based social media distribution
• Filtering and recommendation systems
• Error-resilience tools for peer-to-peer multimedia services
• Rate control and bandwidth adaptation for both single streams and multiple stream multiplexing
• Cross layer optimization issues
• Protocols for peer-to-peer multimedia services
• P2P streaming prototype implementation for both live and on-demand streaming
• Advertisement, payment, and cashing systems
• Applications, standards, and practical deployments

Invited Talk

Audio/visual content and metadata delivered over the open Internet using P2P-Next: some experiences from a broadcaster's perspective

by George Wright, Head of Prototyping, BBC Research and Development

The best paper award (€300) is sponsored by RADVISION (http://www.radvision.com/).

Important Dates

• Paper submission: June 1014, 2010 (extended)
• Notification of acceptance: July 10, 2010
• Camera-ready submission: July 2026, 2010 (due to constraints imposed by ACM)
• Workshop date: October 29, 2010

Submission Guidelines
Papers should not exceed five pages in length, following the ACM proceedings format. Papers must be original and have not been published or under consideration for publication elsewhere. Each paper will be reviewed by three members of the program committee, recognised for their competence in the field. Final decision about inclusion in the workshop proceedings will be taken by the PC members exclusively on the basis of the obtained reviews and levels of recommendation. Papers must be registered using the ACM Multimedia conference management software (http://www.edas.info/N9045).

Accepted papers will be included in the workshop's proceedings which will be published together with the proceedings of the ACM Multimedia Conference 2010. Additionally, a special issue or an edited volume is planed based on the best papers of the workshop.

Workshop Organisers:
  Gabriella Olmo, Politecnico di Torino
  Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University
  Pascal Frossard, EPFL
  Keith Mitchell, University of Lancaster

Demonstrations
  Njål Borch, NORUT, Norway

Program Committee
  Jari Ahola, VTT, Finland
  Peter Amon, Siemens, Germany
  Riccardo Bernardini, Università di Udine, Italy
  Njål Borch, NORUT, Norway
  Giancarlo Calvagno, Università di Padova, Italy
  Luca Celetto, STMicroelectronics, Italy
  Pablo Cesar, CWI, The Netherlands
  Jaime Delgado, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
  Marek Domanski, Poznan University of Technology, Poland
  Kalman Graffi, TU Darmstadt, Germany
  Marco Grangetto, Università di Torino, Italy
  Hermann Hellwagner, Klagenfurt University, Austria
  Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen, Germany
  Mathias Lux, Klagenfurt University, Austria
  Enrico Magli, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
  Pierangelo Migliorati, Università di Brescia, Italy
  Daniel Negru, University of Bordeaux, France
  Jens-Rainer Ohm, RWTH Aachen, Germany
  Jörn Ostermann, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany
  Giovanni Pau, University of California at Los Angeles, US
  Fernando Pereira, IST, Portugal
  Roberto Rinaldo, Università di Udine, Italy
  Thomas Schierl, HHI, Germany
  Iraj Sodagar, Microsoft, US
  Marco Tagliasacchi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
  Tammam Tillo, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China
  Stefano Tubaro, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
  Theodore Zahariadis, Synelixis Solutions Ltd, Greece

The workshop is partly sponsored by the project “ARACHNE: Advanced video streaming techniques for peer-to-peer networks,” funded by the Italian Ministry for Education and Research (www.diegm.uniud.it/arachne), and partly by the EC-funded “P2P-Next” project (www.p2p-next.org).

ACM Multimedia 2010 - Call for Workshop Papers

Deadlines : see on Workshops websites
http://www.acmmm10.org/
October 25-29th 2010 - Firenze, Italy

ACM Multimedia 2010 announces its Workshop program:

Multimedia Content

• 1st ACM ARTEMIS2010 International Workshop on Analysis and Retrieval of Tracked Events and Motion in Imagery Streams
• 3D Object Retrieval
• 3D video processing
• Machine Learning and Music (MML10)
• Multimodal Pervasive Video Analysis, MPVA 2010
• Searching Spontaneous Conversational Speech (SSCS 2010)
• Surreal media and Virtual Cloning
• Very-Large-Scale Multimedia Corpus, Mining and Retrieval

Multimedia Systems

• Advanced video streaming techniques for peer-to-peer networks and social networking
• Mobile Cloud Media Computing
• Mobile Video Delivery (MoViD)

Human Centered Multimedia

• Affective Interaction in Natural Environments (AFFINE)
• Connected Multimedia
• Electronic Heritage and Digital Art Preservation (eHeritage)
• Social Signal Processing (SSPW 2010)
• Social, Adaptive and Personalized Multimedia Interaction and Access" (SAPMIA 2010)
• The Second SIGMM Workshop on Social Media (WSM2010)

Multimedia Applications

• Automated Information Extraction in Media Production (AIEMPro10)
• Multimedia in Forensics, Security and Intelligence MiFor 2010
• Multimedia Technologies for Distance Leaning (MTDL 2010)

Please link to the ACM MM2010 Workshop web page, look at workshops' topics and scopes and plan to submit your recent research results.

ACM Multimedia 2010 - Call for Short Papers, Videos, Cultural Heritage, Open Source Competition, Discussion Rooms, Doctoral Symposium, Technical Demos, Industrial Exhibit

Deadline for submission: May 7th, 2010 (May 31st for Industrial Exhibit)
http://www.acmmm10.org/
October 25-29th 2010 - Firenze, Italy

The deadline for submissions to ACM Multimedia 2010 Short Papers, Videos, Cultural Heritage, Open Source Competition, Discussion Rooms, Doctoral Symposium and Technical Demos is May 7th, 2010. The deadline for Industrial Exhibit submissions is May 31st, 2010.
Short Papers will be presented as posters in an interactive setting. Short papers should present interesting and exiciting recent results or novel thought-provoking ideas that are not quite ready, and preferrably include a system demonstration.
Videos should present innovative research results, like for example merging augmented reality and real world entities, showing the use of multiple cameras, camera arrays or video-sensor networks or communicate complex ideas through novel means and solutions or showing creative applications or multimedia artistic productions in new contexts.
The Cultural Heritage Track of the Interactive Art Program seeks to connect the cultural heritage and multimedia communities, so to drive innovation in the multimedia field through cultural content and to inject scientific and technological innovations in the cultural heritage area through advanced multimedia techniques.
Open-Source Software Competition is intended to celebrate and encourage the contribution of researchers and software developers to advance the field by providing the community with implementations of codecs, middleware, frameworks, toolkits, libraries, applications, and other multimedia software.
Discussion Rooms are open spaces for debate peer-to-peer basis and will complement Panels (that stimulate experts-to-attendees debates), Tutorials (that provide expert-to-attendees overview or in-depth courses) and Doctoral Symposia (that implement expert-to-PHD moments of scientific suggestion).
Doctoral Symposium provides students involved in the preparation of a PhD in any area of Multimedia with a unique opportunity to have interaction with senior researchers regarding their proposed dissertation research, and meet other doctoral students at the same stage of their dissertation research.
Open-Source Software Competition is intended to celebrate and encourage the contribution of researchers and software developers to advance the field by providing the community with implementations of codecs, middleware, frameworks, toolkits, libraries, applications, and other multimedia software.
Technical demonstrations will provide live evidence of innovative solutions in the field of Multimedia and its applications, showing leading edge research at work. Submissions are particularly encouraged in all innovative areas of Multimedia.
Industrial Exhibit will showcase innovative Multimedia related commercial product, services, and industrial prototypes.
All details for submitting are on the conference web site http://www.acmmm10.org/.
Important dates (check web site for details on each track):

• May 7th, 2010 – Submission deadline
• May 31st, 2010 – Submission deadline for Industrial Exhibit
• July 5th, 2010 – Notification of acceptance
• July 26th, 2010 – Camera-ready submission deadline

ACM Multimedia 2010 Topics

Topics of ACM Multimedia 2010 tracks include but are not limited to:
Multimedia Systems track
Networks and System support

• Multimedia Networking
• Multimedia Operating Systems
• Multimedia Databases and Digital Libraries
• Real-Time Support For Multimedia
• Networked GPUs, graphics, and virtual environments
• Networked games, real-time immersive systems
• Systems support for Web 2.0 and social networks
• Media sensor and ad hoc networks, embedded systems
• Multimedia communications
• Multimedia security and content protection

Streaming and Multicasting Techniques

• Multimedia distribution
• Media streaming, distribution and storage support
• 3D and Multiview Streaming
• Overlay Systems and Peer-to-Peer Architectures
• End-to-end quality of service support for Universal Multimedia Access

Architectures

• Large-Scale Architectures
• Cloud-based Multimedia Processing
• Multi-core Support for Multimedia
• Wireless and mobile multimedia systems
• Network processor support

Content track
Retrieval and mining

• Content-based retrieval from Audio, Image, Video and 3D digital libraries
• Multimedia Data Mining
• Audio/Image/Video Segmentation
• Multimedia Concept Detection and Annotation
• Video analysis and event/behaviors recognition
• Content indexing
• Retrieval in large digital libraries
• Advanced descriptors and similarity metrics for audio, visual and 3D data

Content representation

• Feature Extraction and Representation
• Machine Learning, Context, and Knowledge Modeling
• Multimedia Metadata Extraction
• Multimedia standards and related issues
• Semantic mapping and ontologies

Content exploitation

• Multi-Modal Fusion and Processing
• Content-based copy detection
• Multimedia content adaptation tools, transcoding and transmoding
• Multimedia and Social Networks

Application track
Context-based and mobile

• Context-based multimedia applications
• Ubiquitous/Pervasive multimedia applications
• Mobile multimedia applications
• Location-based multimedia applications

Applications of Multimedia technologies

• Semantic web and social networks
• Digital TV
• Interactive games
• Surveillance and identity checking
• Sensor networks with Multimedia processing
• Tools for Multimedia supported collaboration and conferencing
• Rich media enabled E-commerce, training, learning
• Social networking Multimedia applications
• Artistic works exploiting Multimedia technologies
• Access and management of large digital libraries

Specialized tools

• 3D virtual environments and tele-presence
• Tools for Multimedia authoring, editing, and sharing
• Multimedia signal processing applications
• Visualization and browsing of Multimedia data

Human Computer Interaction track
Advanced interaction systems

• Natural language and speech–based interactivity
• Gesture and handwriting interactivity
• Haptic technology and interaction
• Modeling of user behaviors
• User-adaptivity in interactive systems
• Interaction technologies for mobile devices
• Context-aware interaction
• Interaction technologies for large wall-size displays
• Multi-touch interfaces and technologies
• Natural interaction and smart environments
• Immersive environments
• Web-based social interaction
• Solutions for collaboration in multiuser environments

Presentation tools

• Interaction metaphors and techniques for management of digital media
• Interaction metaphors and techniques for the analysis of multimedia content
• Interactive visualization of multimedia data

Interfaces and design methodologies

• Affective and aestethic interfaces
• Proactive user interaction
• Solutions for personalization of system interactivity
• Solutions for generation of multimedia presentations
• Solutions for social Multimedia interactivity
• Solutions for extensive interactivity with mobile devices
• User studies and evaluations of interactive multimedia systems and applications
• Contributions from psychology, cognitive science and sociology to improve knowledge in Multimedia

Multimedia Grand Challenge - Call for Participation

http://www.multimediagrandchallenge.com/
ACM Multimedia 2010
October 25-29th 2010, Firenze, Italy
http://www.acmmm10.org
*****************************************************************************
What problems do Google, Yahoo!, HP, Radvision, CeWe, Nokia and other companies see driving the future of multimedia? The Multimedia Grand Challenge is a set of problems and issues from these industry leaders, geared to engage the Multimedia research community towards solving relevant, interesting and challenging questions in the multimedia industry‚s 2-5 year horizon. The Grand Challenge was first presented as part of ACM Multimedia 2009. and it will be presented again in slightly modified form at ACM Multimedia 2010. Researchers are encouraged to submit working systems in response to these challenges to win the grand Challenge competition!

--------------------------
*Challenges*
--------------------------
CeWe Photo Set Theme Identification
Google Personal Diaries
Google Video Genre Classification
HP Visual Communication
Nokia Photo Location & Orientation
Radvision Content Adaptation
Radvision VideoConf Experience
Yahoo! Novel Image Understanding
Yahoo! Video Segmentation
We encourage you to consider the challenges and submit your contribution to the ACM Multimedia 2010 Grand Challenge track. The top submissions will be presented in a special event during the ACM Multimedia 2010 conference in Florence Italy. Based on these oral presentations in Florence, winners will be selected for Grand Challenge awards worth 1500 USD.

-------------------------
*Paper Submission*
-------------------------
New in 2010: _any_ long, short or demo paper submitted to the regular ACM Multimedia conference can be considered for the Grand Challenge. Regular papers that want to be considered should submit a 1-page additional statement indicating why this work addresses a certain challenge best. In addition, papers, demonstrations and ideas that do not fit the normal scientific style may be submitted to the Grand Challenge by submitting a separate 4-page paper to the Grand Challenge only. (We are afraid that we will NOT consider papers in this path that have been rejected for the scientific program.)
A 1-page statement to accompany an _accepted_ paper or a new 4-page grand challenge paper should be prepared in double-column ACM proceedings style and submitted via http://edas.info/N8591
The submissions must:
o Significantly address one of the industry challenges posted on the Grand Challenge web site.
o Depict working, presentable systems or demos.
o Describe why the system presents a novel and interesting solution.
A number of solutions (perhaps 10-20) will be selected as finalists and invited to describe their work, demonstrate their solution and argue for the paper's success in the Grand Challenge Session in Florence. Each finalist will have several minutes to present their case. Final winner(s) will be chosen by industry scientists, engineers and business luminaries.

-------------------------
*Key Dates*
-------------------------
August 1, 2010 Submission deadline
September 1, 2010 Acceptance notification
October 25, 2010 Conference starts

-------------------------
*Contact*
-------------------------
Malcolm Slaney, Yahoo! Research, USA (malcolm@ieee.org)
Cees Snoek, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands (cgmsnoek@uva.nl)

ACM Multimedia Grand Challenge 2010: Content Adaptation

One of the ACM Multimedia Grand Challenge 2010 is about content adaptation, probably one of THE tools providing Universal (Multi-)Media Access (UMA). In particular, it is called "Radvision Challenge 2010: Real-time Data Collaboration Adaptation for Multi-Device Video Conferencing" and details can be found here with the input/output described as follows:

Input for this challenge is a video capture of a free-hand drawing (see example video) in XGA.
Output for this challenge should be a set of “adapted” videos , with the same content in different (smaller) resolutions – for instance, VGA and QVGA. The adapted videos would ideally be regarded by users as perceptually optimal, meaning they hold the same content as the original.

The metrics for evaluation are "defined" as follows:

The following criteria could be used, as well as other evaluation metrics that you may devise:

1. Subjective comparison between the perceptual quality of the original and the “adapted” content.
2. Subjective comparison between the perceptual quality of a scaled-down version of the original (using a 5-tap poly-phase filter) and the “adapted” content.
3. Real-time Performance.

However, there are many possibilities to adapt content and evaluate the result which heavily depends on the user's context. Some people may think that the description of the input/output as well as the evaluation criteria is defined too vague and I tend to agree. Let me explain:

1. The input is given and for the output it is requested to produce "a set of adapted videos" that is "regarded by users as perceptually optimal". However, it's not clear to which context the input shall be adapted. The text says "different (smaller) resolutions" as an example but I can imaging that users will prefer the original video and regard it as perceptually optimal compared to anything else. Thus, in my view it is necessary to specify the context to which the video shall be adapted. The context may include a lot of things such as terminal device, decoding capabilities, network conditions, user location (stationary, mobile), etc., etc.
2. Subjective quality assessment is not an easy task and there are many possibilities and many approaches. Form the description above it is not clear how the subjective quality evaluation will be performed. In particular, I wonder whether "real" subjective tests as suggested by the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) will be adopted (e.g., DSIS - Double Stimulus Impairment Scale or ACR - Absolute Category Scale to just name two). In my view and in order to provide a fair evaluation it is absolutely necessary to define the exact procedure on how the subjective evaluation of the submissions will be performed. One possibility, of course, is the adoption of a standardized approach and probably DSIS is the right candidate.

ACM Multimedia 2010 - Call for Short Papers, Videos, Cultural Heritage, Open Source Competition, Discussion Rooms, Doctoral Symposium, Technical Demos

Deadline for submission: May 7th, 2010
http://www.acmmm10.org/
October 25-29th 2010 - Firenze, Italy

The deadline for submissions to ACM Multimedia 2010 Short Papers, Videos, Cultural Heritage, Open Source Competition, Discussion Rooms, Doctoral Symposium and Technical Demos is May 7th, 2010.
Short Papers will be presented as posters in an interactive setting. Short papers should present interesting and exiciting recent results or novel thought-provoking ideas that are not quite ready, and preferrably include a system demonstration.
Videos should present innovative research results, like for example merging augmented reality and real world entities, showing the use of multiple cameras, camera arrays or video-sensor networks or communicate complex ideas through novel means and solutions or showing creative applications or multimedia artistic productions in new contexts.
The Cultural Heritage Track of the Interactive Art Program seeks to connect the cultural heritage and multimedia communities, so to drive innovation in the multimedia field through cultural content and to inject scientific and technological innovations in the cultural heritage area through advanced multimedia techniques.
Open-Source Software Competition is intended to celebrate and encourage the contribution of researchers and software developers to advance the field by providing the community with implementations of codecs, middleware, frameworks, toolkits, libraries, applications, and other multimedia software.
Discussion Rooms are open spaces for debate peer-to-peer basis and will complement Panels (that stimulate experts-to-attendees debates), Tutorials (that provide expert-to-attendees overview or in-depth courses) and Doctoral Symposia (that implement expert-to-PHD moments of scientific suggestion).
Doctoral Symposium provides students involved in the preparation of a PhD in any area of Multimedia with a unique opportunity to have interaction with senior researchers regarding their proposed dissertation research, and meet other doctoral students at the same stage of their dissertation research.
Open-Source Software Competition is intended to celebrate and encourage the contribution of researchers and software developers to advance the field by providing the community with implementations of codecs, middleware, frameworks, toolkits, libraries, applications, and other multimedia software.
Technical demonstrations will provide live evidence of innovative solutions in the field of Multimedia and its applications, showing leading edge research at work. Submissions are particularly encouraged in all innovative areas of Multimedia.
All details for submitting are on the conference web site http://www.acmmm10.org/.
Important dates (check web site for details on each track):

• May 7th, 2010 – Submission deadline
• July 5th, 2010 – Notification of acceptance
• July 26th, 2010 – Camera-ready submission deadline

ACM Multimedia 2010 - Call for Full Papers, Brave New Ideas, Interactive Art Program and Workshops

Deadline for abstract registration: March 21st, 2010
http://www.acmmm10.org/
October 25-29th 2010 - Firenze, Italy

The deadline for submissions to ACM Multimedia 2010 Full Papers, Brave New Ideas, Interactive Art Program and Workshops is March 21st, 2010.
Full Papers describe scientific achievements in the following tracks: Multimedia Content, Multimedia Systems, Human Centered Multimedia and Multimedia Applications.
Brave New Ideas proposals address long term research challenges, point to new research directions, or provide new insights or brave perspectives that pave the way to innovation.
Interactive Art Program will consist of an Art Exhibition and a Conference track.
Workshops will address clearly focused topics, pertinent to the main conference, offering emerging interest to multimedia research community.
All details for submitting are on the conference web site http://www.acmmm10.org/.
Important dates:

• March 21st, 2010 – Abstract or proposal submission deadline
• March 29th, 2010 – Workshop notification of acceptance
• April 11th, 2010 – Full Paper and Art Work submission deadline
• May 7th, 2010 – Brave New Idea and Short Paper submission deadline
• July 5th, 2010 – Notification of acceptance
• July 26th, 2010 – Camera-ready submission deadline

[ACM MULTIMEDIA 2010] Call for Proposals: Workshops, Panels and Tutorials

Deadline for proposal submission: March 21st (Workshops), April 11th, 2010 (Panels and Tutorials)
http://www.acmmm10.org/
October 25-29th 2010 - Firenze, Italy

ACM Multimedia 2010 solicites proposals for Workshops, Panels and Tutorials. ACM Multimedia 2010 is the worldwide premier multimedia conference and a key event to display scientific achievements and innovative industrial products.
Workshops will address clearly focused topics, pertinent to the main conference. They should offer emerging interest to multimedia research community, give the opportunity to better explore some new ideas and bridge the community with other areas. A typical Workshop duration is one day. Workshop day for ACM Multimedia 2010 is Friday, October 29, 2010.
Panels: Proposals are solicited for panels of 90 minutes duration. Proposers should organize the panel so that the panelists have high interaction with the attendees. To this end, at least 45 minutes should be spent in interaction with the audience.
Tutorials will address the state-of-the-art developments regarding all aspects of multimedia, and will be of interest to the entire multimedia community, from novices in the world of multimedia to the most seasoned researchers, from people working in academia to industry professionals.
All submission details are on the conference web site http://www.acmmm10.org/.

Important dates:

• March 21st, 2010 – Workshop Proposal submission deadline
• March 29th, 2010 – Workshop notification of acceptance
• April 11th, 2010 – Tutorial and Panels Proposal submission deadline
• June 5th, 2010 – Notification of acceptance
• July 26th, 2010 – Tutorial outline camera-ready submission deadline