A Multi-View Video (MVV) is a set of related videos that capture an interesting scene from different perspectives at overlapping times. The work at hand is concerned with the design of innovative user interfaces (UI) for viewing MVVs. As a first contribution four different MVV UIs are designed. While different in design, their common aim is to allow a pleasant viewing and perspective switching experience by reducing the cognitive effort associated with constructing a mental map of the scene. This is achieved by incorporating the spatial relationships of the available views in the UI elements. As a second contribution a quality model is developed and a methodical evaluation process is designed. This is used to evaluate and compare the UIs. In a third contribution we use principal component analysis (PCA) to reveal information about the perceptual quality space which helps validating our proposed quality model. Based on the findings, a series of conclusions for best design practices are provided.

Video synchronization is an essential processing step in many multimedia applications, and various methods have been proposed in the literature each of which addresses the problem from a different point of vantage. In this article, we present an information theoretic approach to video synchronization, based on the state-of-the-art in hybrid video coding. Time series derived from the videos' instantaneous bitrate demand are correlated in a robust manner employing the recently published ConCor algorithm. We enhance ConCor with integrated normalization capabilities in order to improve its shape-oriented matching performance. Furthermore, we present a mathematical framework to derive the most suitable ConCor parameters given a specific class of input videos. In an extensive experimental analysis, we give an insight into the representation of synchronization-relevant scene changes with bitrate data, and examine the influence of encoding parameters on the synchronization performance. Experiments on diverse video input substantiate the reliable performance of our easy to implement, yet effective video synchronization algorithm which distinguishes itself in that it operates largely without manual intervention.

Consensus-based Cross-correlation (ConCor) is a recently presented algorithm for robust synchronization of noisy and corrupted signals. ConCor has a number of interdependent parameters that need to be set correctly to guarantee good performance. In this paper we analyse the effects of the individual parameters on ConCor's behaviour and performance. As a second contribution, we show that a parameter sweep with subsequent majority voting can be used to boost ConCor's performance and produce a trustworthy confidence measure. As a final contribution we show how the proposed extension also allows performing multi-modal (joint audio-video) synchronization of casual multi-perspective video recordings enabling superior matching performance.

Cross-correlation is a classical similarity measure with broad applications in multimedia signal processing. While it is robust against uncorrelated noise in the input signals, it is severely affected by systematic disturbances which lead to biased results. To overcome this limitation, we propose in this paper consensus-based cross-correlation (ConCor) to deal with heavily corrupted signal parts that derail regular cross-correlation. ConCor builds upon the widely adopted RANSAC algorithm to reliably identify and eliminate corrupt signal parts at limited additional complexity. Our approach is universal in that it can be combined with existing cross-correlation variants. We apply ConCor in two example applications, namely video synchronization and template matching. Our experimental results demonstrate the improved robustness and accuracy when compared to classical cross-correlation.

We present a novel approach for the temporal synchronization of multiple videos which is based on cross-correlating bit rate profiles. The proposed scheme determines the temporal offset without major restrictions on viewing angles, camera properties and camera motion. We propose two extensions of the basic algorithm which reduce the influence of camera motion and distracting background objects. Additionally, we describe how to optimally combine different bit rate components in order to further improve the reliability of the synchronization scheme. The proposed approach, when combined with the three extensions, leads to a reliable, robust, and frame accurate temporal alignment of videos at remarkably low complexity.

We are observing an increasing trend of connecting embedded sensors and sensor networks to the Internet and publishing their output on the Web. We believe that this development is a precursor of a Web of Things, which gives real-world objects and places a Web presence that not only contains a static description of these entities, but also their real-time state. Just as document searches have become one of the most popular services on the Web, we argue that the search for real-world entities (i.e., people, places, and things) will become equally important. However, in contrast to the mostly static documents on the current Web, the state of real-world entities as captured by sensors is highly dynamic. Thus, searching for real-world entities with a certain state is a challenging problem. In this paper, we define the underlying problem, outline the design space of possible solutions, and survey relevant existing approaches by classifying them according to their design space. We also present a case study of a real-world search engine called Dyser designed by the authors.

We propose a novel framework for cooperation among mobile prosumers (CAMP) that aims at establishing semantic relations between multimedia content acquired by mobile users, focussing especially on audio-visual media. We discuss the basic properties of such a system and describe a number of possible applications. We also address technical requirements and possible solutions, and show a preliminary implementation of a cooperative video sharing platform.

The increasing penetration of the real world with embedded and globally networked sensors enables the formation of a Web of Things (WoT), where high-level state information derived from sensors is embedded into Web representations of real-world entities (e.g. places, objects, creatures). A key service for the WoT is searching for entities which exhibit a certain dynamic state at the time of the query, which is a challenging problem due to the dynamic nature of the sought state information and due to the potentially huge scale of the WoT. Below we report on our initial efforts to construct such a search engine and the underlying WoT.

It is clear that the reconfiguration of mobile SDR terminals requires complex interactions between the mobile terminal and the network or application server entities. To enable mobile devices to utilize different radio access technologies and communication protocols depending on the requested application QoS and to enable development of context aware application that can adapt their level of functionality to dynamic radio resource restrictions like available bandwidth, delay and link interruptions, a generic software framework for adaptation and reconfiguration is necessary. In this paper we describe a generic technical and methodical framework for designing context awareness and adaptation behaviour that is based on formal methods, thus allowing for a sophisticated engineering approach in designing and implementing complex context aware adaptive systems. This framework supports the development of customized middleware, reconfigurable protocol stacks and adaptive application services for the three main phases of reconfiguration: profile and context management, adaptation decisions, and technical deployment.

The paper describes a dynamic classmark scheme based on a finite number of stages during a radio connection procedure for reconfigurable terminals in future multiple radio access technology environments. Based on the user profile, terminal profile and service profile that the user applies, features are clustered into different sets called classmarks. The classmarks are designed in a stage-based manner in order to realize the method of dynamically creating and triggering them. During the reconfiguration, radio link establishment and communication processes, the number of stages is adaptive to the access frequency and priorities of the necessary features required by the network. Thanks to this approach, the signaling burden is highly reduced in the radio network. Therefore, the efficiency of radio resource management is improved.