Re: Systematic access to media/plugin metadata

On 12 April 2011 04:06, Silvia Pfeiffer <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com> wrote:

> Correction: Danny named it as an example and I referred to it.
> (Just being picky. :-)

Yup, my fault. I chose it as an example because I wanted to be clear
that such metadata wasn't limited to typical audio/visual media
(incidentally OpenOffice ODF format uses embedded RDF for metadata
too, but I'm not sure of the status of that). But within the context
of audio/visual media there are quite a range of standards for
embedded metadata e.g. ID3 (in mp3s), Exif (jpeg/tiff), MPEG-7 (mpeg
formats).

Although a fixed common struct might capture key parts of the metadata
across a wide range of media (like "title"), I think it would be
preferable to allow flexible access via arbitrary name-value pairs.
Such access could be consistent across a wide range of media types,
and compatible with local data storage.

Regarding use cases - ok, things like indexing are traditionally
considered server-side technologies, largely because we tend to think
in terms of big indexes. But metadata can be usefully stored and
processed locally, and local indexes can be used in concert with
remote ones, with potentially significant gains towards a more
personalised Web experience. Given a rich Web client (like the modern
browser), a lot of applications that would otherwise be server-side
could be moved client-side, and become more focussed on the individual
user. To give a couple of examples:

- looking for a hotel, a browser on a mobile device could use the geo
coords stored in the Exif of a photo to direct the user to the actual
location of the photo
- looking at a set of conference photos, the browser could alert the
user: "hey, that's your friend in the photo!"

Beh, although the technical requirements for supporting metadata
access in the spec could be really minimal, low impact, a lot of of
supporting material will be needed to get anything done  (such as use
cases, lists of potential target media, demo applications
even)...anyone got any ideas on how best to proceed?

Cheers,
Danny.


-- 
http://danny.ayers.name

Received on Tuesday, 12 April 2011 08:51:15 UTC