Re: Overview of Media Technologies for the Web

Dear Media and Entertainment IG, chairs, co-chairs, members

Responding to Francois initiative [1,2] regarding a roadmap earlier, I
realized I've got a comment/question about the scope of the IG.

The charter currently limits the scope to continuous media, with the
following definition:

"...of continuous media, which is here defined as videos, sound recordings,
and their associated technologies such as timed text..."

This sentiment that web-media is mostly about video and audio is also
echoed in the introduction to media rendering [3].

"Few media-based services can usefully function without rendering audio or
video content;..."

While I agree that audio and video are all-important media types, I also
see the Web platform as a great promise for continuous media experiences
that don't (necessarily) include any audio or video.

Case in point:

I work at Norut, a Norwegian research institute which does research with
UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), typically with the intent of recording a
variety of data while flying over remote areas. To support the operational
phase as well as post-mission presentation of gathered data, we use Web
technologies for visualization. In particular, using timing objects [4] we
orchestrate playback of the entire flight in time, visualizing a range of
data types [GPS, altitude, heading, speed, RPM, images, communication logs,
wind, etc. ], using appropriate visualization technologies for each data
type [2D web maps, js-graph utilities, web-based 3D visualization, image
viewers etc].

The point being: From a user perspective, our flight visualization is a
continuous media experience in every sense of the word (you can pause it
and rewind etc), yet it does not necessarily include any audio or video
data, so it seems it would not be covered by the scope of the media and
entertainment IG.

I'm therefore curious if this scope restriction is necessary?

After all, the Web platform is packed with sensors and visualization tools,
opening up for a host of use-cases involving distributed capturing and
distributed visualization of real world processes (including video or not).
In my mind, this represents a significant potential for the the Web
platform, and it would align perfectly with the proposed roadmap structure
[1] for Media and Entertainment IG -- except perhaps for that restriction
in the scope.

With a broader scope in this regard, there would likely be a need for
increased support for playback of various types of timed data (examples
above) besides subtitles and transcripts. The Multi-device Timing CG has
already done exploratory work in this regard, defining sequencing
functionality which is agnostic with respect to media formats.


Best regards,

Ingar Arntzen
Norut, Chair Multi-device Timing CG

[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-web-and-tv/2017Sep/0008.html
[2] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-web-and-tv/2017Oct/0000.html
[3] http://w3c.github.io/web-roadmaps/media/rendering.html
[4] http://webtiming.github.io/timingobject/

2017-09-28 11:22 GMT+02:00 Francois Daoust <fd@w3.org>:

> Dear Media and Entertainment Interest Group,
>
> I have been working on an "Overview of Media Technologies for the Web"
> document that lists Web technologies that can be used to build media
> applications and services, and highlights known gaps:
>
> http://w3c.github.io/web-roadmaps/media/
>
> The purpose is to provide a single resource that web developers in the
> media industry, as well as those involved in the standardization process,
> can use to find out about the current status of relevant Web technologies.
>
> The document is structured around different aspects of the media pipeline:
> - Media rendering
> - Media control
> - Media distribution
> - Media processing
> - Content orchestration
> - Media capture
> - Media application development
>
> It details Web technologies that apply to each of these aspects, with a
> short description of what that technology enables in a media context each
> time. Technologies are sorted in different categories depending on their
> status:
>
> - *Well-deployed technologies* are technologies that are finished or
> nearly finished (e.g. CR and beyond in the W3C Rec track) and that have
> already found significant adoption among implementations;
> - *Technologies in progress* list features that have already started their
> standardization track progress;
> - *Exploratory work* groups features described in specifications prior to
> their proper standardization work;
> - *Features not covered by ongoing work* identify functionalities that are
> known to be needed for some use cases, but that no existing specification
> adequately covers
> - *Discontinued features* point out attempts to develop a feature that was
> deemed useful at a point in time, but that was stopped for some reason, or
> that led to some alternative proposal.
>
> This overview should not be considered as anything else than work in
> progress right now. Some technologies are probably missing, descriptions
> should be improved. I wanted to share this document with you for two
> reasons:
>
> 1. to invite feedback on the document (look and feel, usefulness,
> structure, content, etc.).
> 2. to check whether the Media and Entertainment Interest Group would be
> interested to adopt this document as working document.
>
> In particular, the current charter of the Interest Group says that the
> group will "maintain a public list of the media features on the Web that it
> is tracking and investigating. These features will include identified gaps,
> stable features deployed in browser implementations, as well as features
> under development in W3C and external groups":
> https://www.w3.org/2017/03/webtv-charter.html#deliverables
>
> I'm wondering whether the Overview document could provide a good basis for
> that list, and a good working document to structure discussions within the
> group. If people are interested, I'll be happy to present that document
> during one of the IG calls as well as during the group's F2F during TPAC.
>
> This document is intended to be lightweight to maintain and complete over
> time. It is part of a series of roadmap-like documents, developed with a
> common framework. The framework takes care of adding implementation data
> for each feature/technology listed in the document, and of providing means
> for users to navigate between pages. The framework is still very sketchy
> for the time being, but will be maintained and improved by W3C team over
> time.
>
> You'll find more information about the ins and outs of such documents in:
> https://github.com/w3c/web-roadmaps#framework-for-web-technology-roadmaps
>
> Feel free to raise comments on the associated issue tracker:
> https://github.com/w3c/web-roadmaps/issues/
> (replies to this email are of course welcome as well)
>
> Thanks,
> Francois.
>
>
>