Demonstration at the MMM 2012

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Markus Waltl

Markus Waltl, Benjamin Rainer, Christian Timmerer and Hermann Hellwagner submitted a demonstration paper with the title: ‘Enhancing the User Experience with the Sensory Effect Media Player and AmbientLib’ to the MMM 2012, Jan. 4-6 2012, Klagenfurt, Austria.

Abstract: Multimedia content is increasingly used in every area of our life. Still, each type of content only stimulates the visual and/or the hearing system. Thus, the user experience depends only on those two stimuli. In this paper we introduce a standard which offers the possibility to add additional effects to multimedia content. Furthermore, we present a multimedia player and a Web browser plug-in which uses this standard to stimulate further senses by using additional sensory effects (i.e., wind, vibration, and light) to enhance the user experience resulting in a unique, worthwhile sensory experience.

Here are some fotos of the demonstration given at the MMM 2012:
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QoMEX 2012: Call for Papers

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Markus Waltl

The fourth International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX) will bring together leading professionals and scientists interested in evaluating multimedia quality and user experience. QoMEX is the flagship workshop of the European COST action Qualinet which serves as its technical and financial sponsor. The 2012 workshop is the first of the series to be held in the Asia-Pacific and provides new opportunities for QoMEX to explore the rich technology interests of the region. QoMEX 2012 will be held at The Sebel Heritage Yarra Valley, a luxury 4.5 star golf and spa resort. The Yarra Valley is one of the premier food and wine regions of Australia, home to the Yarra Ranges and over 100 local wineries.

Multimedia is a ubiquitous part of modern life; content is delivered on a wide variety of devices both fixed and mobile, the consumption environment can vary dramatically and increasingly users demand fulfilling interaction with their media. Evaluation, both objectively and subjectively of separate audio, video or image content is well known, but there are substantial challenges in evaluating users’ complete experiences of mixed content. This is exacerbated by the diversity of devices, interfaces, consumption environments and content prevalent in today’s market. Increasingly, evaluation approaches must include psychological, perceptual and contextual dimensions to truly represent and measure users’ experiences. Understanding how users react and perceive content and applications will inform and improve new applications and lead to improved user experiences.

QoMEX 2012 features oral presentations, exhibits, panel sessions and poster sessions, providing attendees with various opportunities to discuss the latest progress and trends in multimedia user experience. The workshop venue and format has been specifically chosen to increase opportunities for expert interaction and discussion. The proceedings of QoMEX 2012 will be published in IEEE Xplore.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Visual User Experience (Image/Video/Graphics): Objective and subjective quality evaluation, psychovisual modelling, quality‐centered processing, compression and transmission, QoE evaluation in HD and beyond.
  • Auditory User Experience (Speech/Audio): Psychoacoustic modelling, quality assessment of interactive speech and audio applications/ interfaces, models and metrics for evaluation of spatial audio.
  • Sensory User Experiences: Novel sensory interfaces, methods for sensory user feedback, quality metrics and assessment methods for evaluation of ambient and sensory experiences.
  • QoE for Mobile Devices: device‐dependent, adaptive user interfaces, evaluating interactive experiences on mobile devices, objective and subjective evaluation on iPhone/Android/mobile multimedia applications.
  • QoE for 3D Multimedia: QoE metrics and evaluation methods for 3D audio and 3D video, virtual, augmented and mixed realities, haptic interaction, other immersive modalities and interactive interfaces.
  • Standardization Activities in Multimedia Quality Evaluation: Benchmarking efforts, multimedia databases/ datasets of various modalities (speech, audio, video, sensory, etc.) and fidelities (quality, bitrate, etc.), testing conditions and methods, new objective metrics and models for upcoming standards.
  • Applications and Services: evaluating QoE in multimedia applications e.g., games/gamification, biomedical/telemedicine, distance education, teleconferencing/telepresence, multimedia web search/browsing, cloud‐based multimedia applications, etc.

Important Dates

  • Submission deadline: February 14, 2012
  • Notification of acceptance: April 30, 2012
  • Camera ready submission: May 14, 2012
  • Author registration deadline: May 30th, 2012

For more information or if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at qomex2012 [at] gmail [dot] com.

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Participants for User Study needed

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Markus Waltl

© Sven Bähren - Fotolia.com

We are currently conducting a User Study with sensory effects (i.e., wind, vibration, light) in the area of the World Wide Web.

For this we are looking for around 20 participants who have to meet the following requirements:

  • Web access
  • An up-to-date web browser
  • One or more amBX kits

Between the participants an 4 Amazon gift cards (€20,- or $20,-) will be raffled as financial compensation.

Interested participants are invited to visit this web site and register with their e-mail address.

Please note that the User Study will last until October 16th 2011 December 2011.

Edit: Thanks to all participants for their support. The winners for the gift cards have already been informed.

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Meet us at the NEM Summit 2011

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Markus Waltl

From Sep 27-29 the NEM Summit 2011 takes place in Turin, Italy. Markus Waltl will be there for the NEM Art & Design Contest and will be glad to show some videos, SESim, and SEVino to you. Furthermore, he will be happy to answer your questions about MPEG-V and Sensory Effect-related topics.

Feel free to visit him at the NEM Art & Design booth at the NEM Summit 2011.

Here you can see the video with which we participate at the NEM Art & Design:

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Demonstration at the MMWeb 2011

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Markus Waltl

Markus Waltl, Benjamin Rainer, Christian Timmerer and Hermann Hellwagner submitted a demonstration paper with the title: ‘Sensory Experience for Videos on the Web’ to the MMWeb 2011, Sep 8th, Graz, Austria .

Abstract: More and more multimedia content is becoming available via the World Wide Web (WWW). These contents stimulate only senses like hearing or vision. Recently, it has been proposed to stimulate also other senses while consuming multimedia content, through so-called sensory effects. These sensory effects aim at enhancing the user’s viewing experience by providing effects such as light, wind, vibration, etc. These effects are represented as Sensory Effect Metadata (SEM) which is associated to multimedia content and is rendered on devices like fans, lamps, or vibration chairs. In this paper, we present a plug-in for Web browsers which is able to render such sensory effects provided via Web content, and we describe a demonstrator that uses this plug-in to control an amBX system.

Here are some fotos of the demonstration given at the MMWeb 2011:

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Keynote of Christian Timmerer at MobiMedia 2011

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Christian Timmerer

Christian Timmerer was invited to give a keynote at MobiMedia 2011, Sep 5th, Cagliari, Italy on ‘Future Immersive Media Technologies: Sensory Experience’.

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. This is 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 hearing or vision, 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.

The slides are available on Slideshare:

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QoMEX2011: Call for Participation

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Christian Timmerer

The Third International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX) will bring together leading professionals and scientists who are developing methods for evaluating multimedia quality and user experience. The workshop is organized on September 7-9, 2011 in Mechelen, Belgium in the vicinity of Brussels. The conference program of QoMEX 2011 has been published on the conference website www.qomex.org together with venue information.

QoMEX 2011 features an exciting program with plenary talks by:

  • Nasir Memon (Polytechnic Institute of New York University, New York) on ‘Image and Video Forensics’
  • Arnold Vermeeren (TU Delft) & Effie Law (University of Leicester/ETH Zurich) on ‘Good User Experience: Yes! But what is it?’
  • Karlheinz Brandenburg (Ilmenau University of Technology/Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology ) on ‘Audio Quality: Listening Tests, Objective Measures and What Else?’
  • Cédric Marchessoux (Barco) on ‘Why medical display quality is a crucial factor in visualization in Healthcare!’

and lecture and poster sessions on ‘QoE: How to Define, Assess and Apply?’, ‘2D, 3D and Interactive Video QoE’, ‘Visual Quality Metrics and Models’, ‘Audio(-visual) QoE’, ‘Perception & Testing’ and ‘Image Structure & Visual Attention’.

Furthermore, a special session on ‘Qualinet Industry Forum’ is organized including a panel discussion on ‘QoE in Applications, Standardization and Certification’ moderated by Fernando Pereira (Instituto Superior Técnico Instituto de Telecomunicações) and having as panel members Arthur Webster (National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences NTIA/ITS, US), Ingrid Heynderickx (Philips Research Laboratories ,The Netherlands), Karlheinz Brandenburg (Institute for Media Technology at Ilmenau University of Technology, Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT, German) and Touradj Ebrahimi (PEFL, Switzerland).

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Enhancing the Quality of Multimedia Experience through Sensory Effects

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Christian Timmerer

This site is still under construction but you may already find some useful information. Thus, be patient and stay tuned…

 

 

In the meantime you might checkout the ‘About‘ page which acts as an index to the content available so far.

However, if you have any questions or comments do not hesitate to contact us via the ‘Team‘ page.

 

 

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