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Earlier in the P2P-Next project we tackled synchronisation of interactive elements with on-demand video. We developed our own framework called LIMO for creating timed events which uses a combination of HTML5, JavaScript and JSON. Our demo shows how the timed events can be used for subtitles, chapters and panels with additional content, and how these can be integrated with the video on a web page.

More recently we've been focusing on the problem of synchronising timed metadata with live audio or video streams. This is already possible using proprietary technologies and we wanted to explore if it could be done using open standards and technologies, in particular HTML5. The timed metadata in question could be LIMO events to recreate the demo mentioned above on a live basis and making live synchronisation work could also benefit other frameworks such as .

In order to show synchronised media being streamed we created a new demonstrator interface using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3. This provides three different views on live LIMO events: full-page video, full-page interactive content and the timeline view (see screenshot). The underlying work involved refactoring our LIMO code to provide better support for live media, and modifying a browser (we started with Firefox) to implement the startOffsetTime attribute from the HTML5 specification. Sean will be posting a detailed technical description of this work in the next few days.

This week on our other projects:

Another week and the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ R&D Internet Research and Future Services team is, as always, busy across multiple projects to the betterment of human experience. However, some of the details of our work-in-progress cannot be divulged to the public due to the confidential nature of the research. So I'm afraid this week we cannot update you on 5th-dimensional broadcasting, infrasonic data transmission networks or Web 4.0 socialisation interfaces. Because I just made them up. Here's what we can tell you:

A new release of is nearly upon us. Andrew has been browser-testing Theo's redesigned UI and squashing bugs both small and large. Tristan has walked through the new version a couple of times, and, with Theo, planning a future-focused video explainer.

It's full-steam ahead for the FI-Content project team. Barbara and Chris Needham went to Brussels to attend their respective work package meetings with the FI-Content partners to define the content for the next deliverables. Meanwhile, Vicky, Joanne and Pete continued to refine their proposals for the user-based diary study. After group-feedback, Joanne finished off the recruitment brief, as Pete further refined the Dashboard data visualisation wireframes. Andrew and Duncan were recruited to build a TV-viewing data-capture interface.

Meanwhile, Olivier and Chris spent the week in California with the W3C Audio Group, somehow managing to shun the sun and beaches to concentrate on two intense days of meetings on the future of audio processing on the Web. So no amusing photos of them posing on Santa Monica beach with David Hasselhoff then. Pity.

Links of interest:

(Thanks to Dominic Tinley for the LIMO report and Tristan for the links)