RE: Why not use DC?

Dear Dan, all,

Indeed this is an interesting discussion/problem. I guess we should define
also what "media content" is before we can talk about a Resource or "thing"
related to (or representing) media content. By the way, referring to the
ma:format property it is proposed to use the MIME type to represent the
actual resource, as such the emphasis currently lies on digital
representations of media content. 

The mission of the WG is "to provide an ontology and API designed to
facilitate cross-community data integration of information related to media
objects in the Web, such as video, audio and images." (taken from the home
page).

A painting, a play, or concerto could all be regarded as media content,
however in our context I believe media content should be restricted to
audio, images, text, video, etc. which might be accessible on the web in
some representation. (I don't know if multimedia content is more
appropriate?)
So a media Resource can represent a digital picture of a sunset (abstract
notation) or a JPEG-image of certain size (the binary encoding).

So from this point of view I would assign the following as media Resources:

1. a library MARC record describing a DVD
[yes, properties have values about the record, not about the DVD]
2a. a HTML page describing that same DVD (some specific DVD)
[yes, properties have values about the HTML page, not about the DVD]	
2b. an Amazon HTML page describing the general class of that DVD (ie.
[yes, properties have values about the HTML page, not about the class of
DVD]
that you can buy)
3. An MPEG movie embedding metadata describing the film (from the DVD)
[yes, properties have values about MPEG movie and the film (e.g., genre)]
4. A videotape of the film
[no]
5. A set of several thousand identical 35mm films with that same content
[no]
6. A rusty metal tin on a specific shelf of a national archive room,
[no]
containing one of those films
7. The abstract notion of Shakespeare's Hamlet
[no if you mean the play, yes if you mean one of the movies about the play]
8. The abstract notion of the W3C homepage
[yes]
9. A printed, written transcript of the soundtrack to a film
[no]
10. Information about the creator of (9.).
[no]


Once we all agree on the actual meaning of media resources and media content
we can further refine the definition.
I guess this topic will bring forth some interesting discussions (either on
the mailing list or next week on the F2F).
I also believe that it would be good to add the examples that Dan has given
to the document to clearly define our terminology.

Kind regards,
Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: public-media-annotation-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-media-annotation-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Dan Brickley
Sent: donderdag 18 juni 2009 11:45
To: Pierre-Antoine Champin
Cc: public-media-annotation@w3.org
Subject: Re: Why not use DC?

On 18/6/09 11:16, Pierre-Antoine Champin wrote:
> Dan Brickley a écrit :
>> On 18/6/09 02:48, Renato Iannella wrote:
>>> In Section 4.1.2 of<http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-mediaont-10-20090618>
>>> abut 11 of the Core Properties are the same as Dublin Core - why not use
>>> that namespace?
>> One argument might be reduced scope, however in
>>
>> "[Definition: Media Resource]
>>
>>      Any Resource (as defined by [RFC 3986]) related to a media content.
>> Note that [RFC 3986] points out that a resource may be retrievable or
>> not. Hence, this term encompasses the abstract notion of a movie (e.g.
>> Notting Hill) as well as the binary encoding of this movie (e.g. the
>> MPEG-4 encoding of Notting Hill on my DVD), or any intermediate levels
>> of abstraction (e.g. the director's cut or the plane version of Notting
>> Hill). Although some ontologies (FRBR, BBC) define concepts for
>> different such levels of abstraction, our ontology does not commit to
>> any classification of media resources."
>>
>> ...it's clear that a "Media Resource" can be anything, since "related
>> to" is completely unconstrained.
>
> ehr... that was not really the intended meaning of "related to" :-/
> (though now that you're pointing it out, it can indeed be interpreted
> that way).
>
> According to your interpretation, the director of a movie would be
> covered by the definition, which was indeed not intended (or did I miss
> something? ;-)

Yes, I was going on what was written, rather than what I thought you 
might've really meant!

Other projects have danced around this problem. Early Dublin Core talked 
about "document like objects" with a strong emphasis towards online 
documents, but then you get the museums and archival community involved, 
and suddenly a physical painting, or a slide from a photos of that 
painting, or a roll of old movie film, all seem also in scope. And it 
turns out (eg. as concluded by http://dublincore.org/workshops/dc3/) 
that documents like objects, online and offline images, can usefully be 
described with many common properties.

It seems you want to limit things to content / works and content-bearing 
objects, rather than admit the entire universe here?

BTW re "Any Resource (as defined by [RFC 3986])", ... I wouldn't bother 
citing http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3986.html for a definition of 
resource. All it says is

      "This specification does not limit the scope of what might be a
       resource; rather, the term "resource" is used in a general sense
       for whatever might be identified by a URI."

I suggest instead "thing", since that's all RFC3986 "resource" means 
these days.


> Would "Any Resource (...) representing a media content" be clearer (this
> is a question to the WG as well) ? It may seem a little too "concrete"
> at first sight (e.g. implying "machine representation"), but I think the
> following paragraph makes it clear it can be more abstract.

Taking my "thing" suggestion, that gives ... "Any thing representing 
media content". This seems a reasonable statement of intent. Perhaps the 
best way to make this concrete (amongst ourselves, if not in the spec) 
is by example. Which of the following are intended to be Media Resources:

1. a library MARC record describing a DVD
2a. a HTML page describing that same DVD (some specific DVD)
2b. an Amazon HTML page describing the general class of that DVD (ie. 
that you can buy)
3. An MPEG movie embedding metadata describing the film (from the DVD)
4. A videotape of the film
5. A set of several thousand identical 35mm films with that same content
6. A rusty metal tin on a specific shelf of a national archive room, 
containing one of those films
7. The abstract notion of Shakespeare's Hamlet
8. The abstract notion of the W3C homepage
9. A printed, written transcript of the soundtrack to a film
10. Information about the creator of (9.).

This is just a rough list, from top of my head. Main points: do you 
include physical artifacts directly? does there need to be a digital 
representation involved somewhere?

Thinking again about

"Any thing/resource representing media content", isn't that almost 
circular or somehow redundant, if "media" is taken to mean the carrier 
or means by which content/information is represented or transmitted?

Can you give some more borderline counter-examples (apart from the 
Director) of situations where something is *not* a media object?

Sorry for the pedantry! This is really nice and important work, and I 
especially appreciate the effort you've all put into comparing existing 
efforts...

cheers,

Dan

Received on Thursday, 18 June 2009 12:15:47 UTC