Structured multimedia authoring

Authors:
  • LHLynda Hardman
    Lynda Hardman
  • GRGuido van Rossum
    Guido van Rossum
  • DBDick C. A. Bulterman
    Dick C. A. Bulterman
Open Access
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Abstract
We present the user interface to the CMIF authoring environment for constructing and playing multimedia presentations. The CMIF authoring environment supports a rich hypermedia document model allowing structure-based composition of multimedia presentations and the specification of synchronizati on constraints between constituent media items. An author constructs a multimedia presentation in terms of its structure and additional synchronization constraints, from which the CMIF player derives the precise timing information for the presentation. We discuss the advantages of a structured approach to authoring multimedia, and describe the facilities in the CMIF authoring environment for supporting this approach. The authoring environment presents three main views of a multimedia presentation: the hierarchy view is used for manipulating and viewing a presentation's hierarchical structure; thechannel view is used for managing logical resources and specifying and viewing precise timing constraints; and the player for playing the presentation. We present the authoring environment in terms of a short example: constructing a walking tour of Amsterdam.