Sync-by-CBA: Using metadata for content-based associations to facilitate logically synchronized and adaptive multimedia presentations

Synchronization is an important aspect in multimedia presentations comprising spatial and temporal relations between media objects. The objective of the research was to determine the feasibility of authoring web-based multimedia documents that are synchronized based on the content in the document as well as time. The data collected and analyzed for this research is intended to help better understand how metadata can be used in the design and development of multimedia content-based authoring and synchronization software.; The research defined a content-based association (CBA) model for use in late-binding, loosely-coupled inter-object synchronization and a content-based authoring approach that has its roots in dance notation. A prototype content-based association synchronization engine (CAE), developed as part of the research, used MPEG-7 XML image descriptors as metadata to describe the content in a video-based presentation. The engine integrates the MPEG-7 XML metadata into a video grove. It includes an interface that can be used to access the metadata in the grove via an XML/SOAP based web service.; The tests conducted for the evaluation of the engine were designed to specifically evaluate whether or not MPEG-7 textual image metadata could be used to describe and locate the content in a grove constructed from a digital video stream. The evaluation was conducted using three digital movies and four types of MPEG-7 image descriptors. Results were analyzed to determine whether or not an acceptable skew could be achieved when locating synchronization points.; The results showed that the different types of content metadata used during the evaluation varied in accuracy and consistency when locating content in a video, but confirm that metadata can be applied to the late-binding, content-based synchronization of multimedia presentations. This research can be applied to support the dual coding of information in web-based learning environments.