Annodex
Encyclopedia
Annodex is a digital media
format developed by CSIRO to provide annotation and indexing
of continuous media, such as audio
and video
.
It is based on the Ogg
container format, with an XML
language called CMML (Continuous Media Markup Language) providing additional metadata
. It is intended to create a Continuous Media Web (CMWeb), whereby continuous media can be manipulated in a similar manner to text media on the World Wide Web
, including searching and dynamic arrangement of elements.
in mid-2001. Some of the ideas behind CMML and the generic addressing of temporal
offsets
were proposed in a 1997 paper by Bill Simpson-Young and Ken Yap.
In January 2002 the Annodex team took on two students, Andrew Nesbit and Andre Pang, along with Simon Lai who became the first person to author meaningful content in CMML. During this time the basics of the Annodex technology were designed, including the design of temporal URI
fragments, the basic DTD
s, the choice of the Ogg encapsulation format and the initial design of the libraries.
By late 2004, Andre Pang developed the Annodex Plug-in for Mozilla Firefox
Browsers, allowing for the playback of Annodex media encoded with the Ogg
Theora
video codec
and the Ogg
Vorbis
audio codec
. Time URI
s implemented at the Location Bar provides the server-side seeking functionality on Annodex media and enables hyperlinking into and out of Annodex media through a table of contents
clip list for CMML content.
Over time there was increasing development of Annodex technology from the open-source community, starting with Debian
packages by Jamie Wilkinson, Python
bindings by Ben Leslie, and Perl
bindings by Angus Lees. The command-line authoring tools were completed early in 2001, whilst being continually updated to adhere to the current Version 3 of the Annodex annotation standards by 2005.
In November 2005, CSIRO wanted to focus on closed-source research and build existing products on top of the technology, thus losing interest in the open source
standard components of it. Therefore, a decision was made to separate out the open-source components into its own organisation by creating an Annodex Foundation
similar in spirit to the many other foundations that have been created around other FOSS
technologies.
markup language
for time-continuous data such as audio and video. The main principles of CMML are as follows:
The origin of the CMML document, along with further documentation and standards can be found at Annodex CMML Standard Version 2.1
Annodex is an encapsulation format, which interleaves time-continuous data with CMML markup in a streamable manner. The Annodex format is built on the Ogg
encapsulation format to allows for internet servers and proxies to manage temporal subparts and reconstruct files from annodexed clips. This introduces the following stream types:
Further information can be found at the following site: Annodex Annotation Format for Time-continuous Bitstreams, Version 3.0
Further information can be found at the following site: Annodex Time Intervals in URI Queries and Fragments
Digital media
Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...
format developed by CSIRO to provide annotation and indexing
Index (search engine)
Search engine indexing collects, parses, and stores data to facilitate fast and accurate information retrieval. Index design incorporates interdisciplinary concepts from linguistics, cognitive psychology, mathematics, informatics, physics, and computer science...
of continuous media, such as audio
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
and video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
.
It is based on the Ogg
Ogg
Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...
container format, with an XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
language called CMML (Continuous Media Markup Language) providing additional metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
. It is intended to create a Continuous Media Web (CMWeb), whereby continuous media can be manipulated in a similar manner to text media on the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
, including searching and dynamic arrangement of elements.
History
The specific design of the elements of the Continuous Media Web project were invented by Silvia Pfeiffer and Conrad Parker at CSIRO AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in mid-2001. Some of the ideas behind CMML and the generic addressing of temporal
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
offsets
Offsets
In botany and horticulture Offset is a term used to describe a small virtually complete daughter plant that has been naturally asexually produced on the mother plant. They are clones , meaning that they are genetically identical to the mother plant. In the plant nursery business and gardens they...
were proposed in a 1997 paper by Bill Simpson-Young and Ken Yap.
In January 2002 the Annodex team took on two students, Andrew Nesbit and Andre Pang, along with Simon Lai who became the first person to author meaningful content in CMML. During this time the basics of the Annodex technology were designed, including the design of temporal URI
Uniform Resource Identifier
In computing, a uniform resource identifier is a string of characters used to identify a name or a resource on the Internet. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the resource over a network using specific protocols...
fragments, the basic DTD
Document Type Definition
Document Type Definition is a set of markup declarations that define a document type for SGML-family markup languages...
s, the choice of the Ogg encapsulation format and the initial design of the libraries.
By late 2004, Andre Pang developed the Annodex Plug-in for Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
Browsers, allowing for the playback of Annodex media encoded with the Ogg
Ogg
Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...
Theora
Theora
Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It is developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg container....
video codec
Video codec
A video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. The compression usually employs lossy data compression. Historically, video was stored as an analog signal on magnetic tape...
and the Ogg
Ogg
Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...
Vorbis
Vorbis
Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression...
audio codec
Audio codec
All codecs are devices or computer programs capable of coding or decoding a digital data stream or signal.The term audio codec has two meanings depending on the context:...
. Time URI
Uniform Resource Identifier
In computing, a uniform resource identifier is a string of characters used to identify a name or a resource on the Internet. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the resource over a network using specific protocols...
s implemented at the Location Bar provides the server-side seeking functionality on Annodex media and enables hyperlinking into and out of Annodex media through a table of contents
Table of contents
A table of contents, usually headed simply "Contents" and abbreviated informally as TOC, is a list of the parts of a book or document organized in the order in which the parts appear...
clip list for CMML content.
Over time there was increasing development of Annodex technology from the open-source community, starting with Debian
Debian
Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
packages by Jamie Wilkinson, Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
bindings by Ben Leslie, and Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
bindings by Angus Lees. The command-line authoring tools were completed early in 2001, whilst being continually updated to adhere to the current Version 3 of the Annodex annotation standards by 2005.
In November 2005, CSIRO wanted to focus on closed-source research and build existing products on top of the technology, thus losing interest in the open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
standard components of it. Therefore, a decision was made to separate out the open-source components into its own organisation by creating an Annodex Foundation
Foundation (charity)
A foundation is a legal categorization of nonprofit organizations that will typically either donate funds and support to other organizations, or provide the source of funding for its own charitable purposes....
similar in spirit to the many other foundations that have been created around other FOSS
Foss
Foss may refer toPeople*Foss , people with the last name Foss*Foss Shanahan , New Zealand diplomat*Foss Westcott , English bishop...
technologies.
Technology
The core technical specification documents on Annodex are being developed through the Annodex community. They consist of the following components as follows:CMML
Continuous Media Markup Language is a XMLXML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
markup language
Markup language
A markup language is a modern system for annotating a text in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from that text. The idea and terminology evolved from the "marking up" of manuscripts, i.e. the revision instructions by editors, traditionally written with a blue pencil on authors' manuscripts...
for time-continuous data such as audio and video. The main principles of CMML are as follows:
- Enables the description of structure for a media file through marking up temporal clips
- Allows attachment of hyperlinks and annotations to the clips.
- Used for authoring of Annodex content through the stream tag.
Example of CMML Content
Hidden Galaxies
Related video on detection of galaxies
What's out there?
The origin of the CMML document, along with further documentation and standards can be found at Annodex CMML Standard Version 2.1
Annodex File Format
Ogg
Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...
encapsulation format to allows for internet servers and proxies to manage temporal subparts and reconstruct files from annodexed clips. This introduces the following stream types:
- A Skeleton meta-header stream
- a CMML annotation stream
Further information can be found at the following site: Annodex Annotation Format for Time-continuous Bitstreams, Version 3.0
Time intervals in URIs
To include time-continuous content such as audio and video media into the Web, it is necessary to be able to point hyperlinks into such content to address temporal offsets.Further information can be found at the following site: Annodex Time Intervals in URI Queries and Fragments