MPEG-4 (Coding of Audiovisual Objects) is a collection of standards that enables the creation of rich media. The latter are usually defined as multimedia content with local and client-server based interactivity, natural audio and video mixed with their synthetic variants, 2D and 3D graphics, scripting, ... In this paper, we will discuss how technology, as available in the MPEG-4 toolkit, can be...

Television advertising levels in Europe are regulated according to the “Audiovisual Service Media Directive”, where member states of the European Union usually impose stricter regulation on their Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) channels. The present model evaluates the effects of symmetric and asymmetric regulation of ad levels on competition for viewers and advertisers in a duopoly framework...

This chapter proposes a novel concept towards the deployment of a networked ‘Media Ecosystem’. The proposed solution is based on a flexible cooperation between providers, operators, and end-users, finally enabling every user first to access the offered multimedia services in various contexts, and second to share and deliver his own audiovisual content dynamically, seamlessly, and transparently ...

Synopsis: A central claim for the value of democratic elections is their potential for civic education. This study is designed to understand how and under what conditions people learn about public affairs from different sources of campaign information. There has long been debate in the literature about whether the medium matters, in particular whether print media are more effective than audiovi...

This paper examines how exhibiting computing artifacts. was confronted by the development team of the Powerhouse Museum's new permanent computing exhibition: Universal Machine. Universal Machine use a mix of objects, activity trails and computer-based audiovisual and interactive technologies to take visitors on a journey through the origins, meaning and impact of contemporary information techno...

Is it possible to create an interactive experience that sustains viewers' emotional involvement with streaming media at the same time that it enlists their attention in determining the order of events? How does one integrate the fluid continuity of cinematic experience with the kinds of choice and control that hypermedia affords? We developed a technique called Seamless Expansion that takes adv...

In this demonstration we present AVResearcher, a prototype aimed at allowing media researchers to explore metadata associated with large numbers of audiovisual broadcasts. It allows them to compare and contrast the characteristics of search results for two topics, across time and in terms of content. Broadcasts can be searched and compared not only on the basis of traditional catalog descriptio...

This paper discusses audio indexing tools that have been implemented for the disclosure of Dutch audiovisual cultural heritage collections. It explains the role of language models and their adaptation to historical settings and the adaptation of acoustic models for homogeneous audio collections. In addition to the benefits of cross-media linking, the requirements for successful tuning and impro...