Hyper-Hitchcock F. Shipman, A. Girgensohn, and L. Wilcox, "Hyper-Hitchcock: Towards the Easy Authoring of Interactive Video", Proceedings of INTERACT 2003, pp

Background There is a need for video editors that support a wide interactive group of authors. Due to merging tv, games and interactive fiction Use of digital video and still cameras Currently there is a trade off: Expressiveness Ease of use Hypervideo allows users to move through portions of video Potential applications are Educational Environments Narrative Story Telling

Background With format like iDVD authors can create navigation of video through an interactive menu One form of interactive hypervideo Restricts the interactions to following links between videos (greater range than chapter selections like iDVD) Another type is “Detail on Demand” video This is the type this paper studies Called Hyper-Hitchcock Supports only on link at a given time (v.s. multiple link anchors in a video frame)

“Detail on Demand” A more simple form of hypervideo At most one link available at a time Authoring is via direct manipulation Not scripting languages which might be unsuitable for a broad audience of authors. Accessible to less technically savvy authors Author selects a video segment, for which the link will be active and that video will be shown to the viewer if the viewer selects that link This saves the viewer time Allows them to select what is relevant

Hierarchical Video with Links The representation’s primary features are links between hierarchical video compositions and link properties Video consists of one of more linear video sequences and links between the elements of these sequences Segments of clips are grouped into composites, and they may be part of higher level composites

Hierarchical Video with Links Links can exist between any two elements If more than one link is available the most specific is exposed The source defines how long the link is available Destination defines which video is played if the link is followed

Link Labels and Behaviors Has source and destination anchors Link label Return behavior (2) What happens when video finishes playing What happens if ends the presentation prior to finishing Author chooses from a set of predefined behaviors

Hyper-Hitchcock A direct manipulation environment For authoring and viewing detail on demand video Authoring tool consists of 3 panes Upper left - selection panels Authoring workspace - bottom Tree View - upper right

Hyper-Hitchcock Video editor Displays hierarchically arranged set of key frames representing source video Metadata about the clip is found in the info bars at the bottom of clips Clips are arranged in “piles” Users can browse through piles by mousing over them Clips are dragged from selection area to the workspace Clips grouped into composites are displayed with 2-4 key frames (1st and last always included) Length of composite clip is reflected by its size The tree view illustrates the structure complicated of composites

Hyper-Hitchcock

Navigational Links Can be created between any 2 elements in the workspace Visualized on workspace by colored arrows between clips and composites Placement tells if he link is in or out Location and color tell if link is connected to whole element or a component Labels can be attached to give view additional information about the destination

Hyper-Hitchcock The player Combines elements from web-browsing and changing television channels. Player indicates when links are available Can follow think link or allow video to keep playing Destination video will play until completion Then the original video will continue based on the link behavior If the destination video is no what the viewer wants they can go “back”

Hyper-Hitchcock The Player cont. When a link is taken an icon appears briefly to indicate what has happened. Jumping straight from video to video confuses viewers It would be useful to use transitions (fade, wipe, cross) but transitions require render time and are not possible until they can be generated in real time.

Hyper-Hitchcock Types of videos created by users A story about a trip to Japan A mountain bike race Feedback Initial confusion of the auto return behavior of links Participant was attempting to do what the system already did Both participants used link attributes to label links and define return routes. Suggested they would use the video editor: for extended story telling Being able to edit video to keep wife happy Difficulties Tracking logical path of the links Difficult to decide what to keep (audio important in decision)

Conclusions Introduced detail on demand video with simplified authoring interface Well suited for Educational materials How to videos allowing navigation to higher detail or different levels of information Supports a much wider range of authors due to ease of learning and use of system Give authors autonomy to specify what happens when a video is finished

Questions The preliminary study for this system only involved two users, Do you think this actually gives any relevant feedback? How would you alter this study? What other applications do you think this type of system has? When do you think it is more important to retain expressiveness and forgo ease of use?