Media Production, Consumption and Sharing
Technological advances are resulting in a complex media ecosystem, in which streaming media can reach a variety of end-devices using a heterogeneous set of delivery methods. Such development allows ubiquitous media consumption, where users consume digital content via a connected ecosystem of devices, whenever they want and wherever they are. Still many challenges remain at the production, distribution, and user levels. Focusing on audiovisual cultural heritage, the group works towards giving blind and low-vision people and deaf and hard-of-hearing people agency over how accessibility services are delivered to them, allowing them to choose rendering formats that suit the type of media being consumed and the setting in which it is consumed, whether individually or together with others. To ground this work in people’s lived experience, the group co-designs with these communities throughout the development process. Technically, the work treats accessibility services as distinct media objects that can be combined and rendered flexibly. This builds on the group’s earlier work on object-based production tools, communication infrastructures for rich media-based shared experiences, and algorithms for rendering media based on user context and intention, as well as seminal works on secondary screens and social TV.
Topics
- Inclusive immersive systems for adaptive, multimodal media, combining universal design principles, object-based media, and AI-driven techniques to ensure access to audio-visual heritage collections for Blind and Visually Impaired (BLV), Deaf, and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) audiences.
- AI-based tools and technologies for the creation, distribution and consumption of news and media;
- Production workflows in the area of digital humanities, for providing enriched access to cultural collections and heritage, and enabling social transformation;
- Object-based production platforms for developing and deploying immersive and interactive multi-screen productions;
- Socially-aware multimedia authoring for empowering end-users to create and share media based on storytelling principles;
- Multimedia systems support for social interaction between remote participants in small (multi-party and domestic video conferencing) and large (distributed theatre) mediated communication scenarios;
- Definition of languages (e.g. SMIL) for the coordinated presentation of temporal objects within container documents. This includes the modeling of user interaction and metadata
Funding
Videos
- MediaScape XR: https://youtu.be/zzB7B6EAU9c
- Object Based Broadcasting Production Tools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sueyA-D3MOo
- Dick Bulterman on Media Annotation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwoSTJo1LeU
Software and Datasets
Publications
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Disability, Differences, and Diversity: Revisiting Inclusive Design and Access.
In Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA 2026),
Barcelona, ES,
2026.
-
Mapping Design Spaces for Audience Participation in Game Live Streaming.
In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI 2021),
Yokohama, JP,
2021.
-
Co-creation Stage: A Web-based Tool for Collaborative and Participatory Co-located Art Performances.
In Proceedings of ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (IMX 2021),
New York, NY, USA,
2021.
-
From the Lab to the OB Truck: Object-based Broadcasting at the FA Cup in Wembley Stadium.
In Extended Abstracts of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI),
Glasgow, UK,
2019.
pp. 1-8.
-
Best Paper
A New Production Platform for Authoring Object-based Multiscreen TV Viewing Experiences. In Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for Television and Online Video (ACM TVX 2018), Seoul, South Korea, 2018. pp. 115-126.
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MediaSync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization.
Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization,
Springer-Verlag,
2018,
ISBN: 978-3-319-65839-1
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Standards for Multi-stream and Multi-device Media Synchronization.
IEEE Communications Magazine,
54 (3): pp. 16-21,
2016
.
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Online Video and Interactive TV Experiences.
ACM Interactions,
22 (5): pp. 32-37,
2015
.
-
Experiments with Distributed Theatre.
IEEE MultiMedia (IEEE MM),
22 (3): pp. 4-9,
2015
.
-
Socially-aware Multimedia Authoring: Past, Present, and Future.
ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications (TOMM),
9 (1s),
2013
.
-
Enabling Composition-Based Video-Conferencing for the Home.
IEEE Transactions on Multimedia,
13 (5): pp. 869-881,
2011
.
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Creating Personalized Memories from Social Events: Community-Based Support for Multi-Camera Recordings of School Concerts.
In In Proceedings of the ACM Multimedia Conference (MM'11),
Scottsdale, AZ, USA,
2011.
pp. 303-312.
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Fragment, Tag, Enrich, and Send: Enhancing the Social Sharing of Videos.
ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications (TOMM),
5 (3): pp. 1-27,
2009
.
-
SMIL State: an architecture and implementation for adaptive time-based web applications.
International Journal on Multimedia Tools and Applications,
43 (3): pp. 203,
2009
.
-
Usages of the Secondary Screen in an Interactive Television Environment: Control, Enrich, Share, and Transfer Television Content.
In European Conference on Interactive Television (EuroITV),
Salzburg, Austria,
2008.
pp. 168-177.
Standards
Theses
- Mario Montagud Climent, Design, Development and Evaluation of an Adaptive RTCP-based IDMS Solution, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain. PhD Thesis, 2015.
- Rodrigo Laiola Guimaraes, Socially-Aware Multimedia Authoring, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. PhD Thesis, 2014.
- Ishan Vaishnavi, Coherence in Synchronous Shared Experiences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. PhD Thesis, 2011.
