Application output recording for instant authoring in a distributed multimedia annotation environment

Abstract

Application Output Recording (called AOR from now on) is the task of recording the output of an application so that the reproduction of the recording is sufficiently similar to the original output performance. The paper proposes a taxonomy to structure the task and describes a generic architecture covering the complete range of possible complexities in a recorder. Variables determining the usability potential, technical aspects and design decisions are defined. The usage of AOR is described in the context of the European Union funded ACTS-project DIANE (Design, Implementation and Operation of a Distributed Annotation Environment), which implements a generic distributed multimedia annotation environment running on broadband systems. A usage scenario clarifies the utilisation of AOR in DIANE. DIANE is evaluated in a telemedicine and a tutorial environment. Special requirements can be derived from these and have implications to the process of recording generic applications. A short overview on the first implementation of AOR in DIANE is given. The taxonomy is applied to solutions from related work as well in the commercial sector.