October 1998

The Berkeley Multimedia Research Center is an interdisciplinary group of artists, educators, professionals, and scientists who are experimenting with interactive multimedia technology in professional practice, scholarship, and education. Our research focuses on teaching and learning, and the development and use of multimedia titles. In addition, BMRC develops and operates facilities that support multimedia projects. These facilities include laboratories for content authoring, studio classrooms and collaboration rooms, and computer networks and servers for developing and using streaming media (e.g., audio and video).

Content authoring is a challenging problem. BMRC has been experimenting with systems and applications to simplify the construction of multimedia content with streaming media elements. We continue to develop technologies to represent video lectures, interviews, and simulations as collections of short video and animation clips accessible through web pages. We have also worked with researchers to create interactive multimedia content using state-of-the-art commercial tools. In the coming year, we will experiment with courseware applications that incorporate more interactivity, 3-D modeling, and animation.

This year we worked with faculty to develop a variety of titles. These collaborations included the development of a prototype on-line course web site, which allowed us to work on the so-called "lecture capture" problem (i.e., authoring content by capturing material during a lecture, and using post production tools to produce a rich content title). This particular site synchronized audio recorded from a lecture with slides, related text and links to other sites. In this project, we used commercial tools along with BMRC custom-designed interface controls. We also evaluated similar systems being developed both in universities and industry. We will continue to experiment in this area during 1998-99.

Other significant authoring projects this year included:

1. a "Video Welcome" produced for Chancellor Berdahl, which is available through the Berkeley home page,
2. a web title with streaming video of the Chancellor's Inaugural forum on "Higher Education in the 21st Century,"
3. a video database of demonstrations published at the annual ACM SIGCHI conference, which allows video material to be easily accessed, and
4. additional segments of the "Conversations with History" series (e.g., the Kofi Annan interview).

Over the next year, in addition to employing and creating specialized content, BMRC will continue to provide the campus community with consulting, training, and access to specialized equipment (e.g., audio and video capture, editing and post-production systems, 2-D and 3-D animation modeling and rendering systems, etc.).

The Center was involved in an important infrastructure project this year. An on-line broadcasting system, called the Berkeley Internet Broadcasting System (BIBS), is being developed. BIBS will allow courses to be broadcast to any computer on the campus network or the worldwide Internet. In addition, course lectures broadcast using BIBS is also archived for on-demand replay at a later date. A major upgrade to a studio classroom (405 Soda Hall) was begun during the summer 1998. In addition, video gateway machines were installed at the Office of Media Services and at other locations that will allow users to watch lectures and commercial TV/Cable programs. The Berkeley Multimedia, Interfaces, and Graphics Seminar has been broadcast worldwide on the Internet using this technology for over three years. We are broadcasting several classes on campus during the Fall 1998 semester and will experiment with offering several classes to remote students in the Spring 1999 semester.

BMRC continued to offer public programs of interest to the campus and Bay Area communities. "Virtual Worlds: Beyond the Screen," the 1997 Bay Area Multimedia Arts & Lecture Series, was sponsored by BMRC in cooperation with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the UC Berkeley Art Museum, and the San Jose Art Museum. This program showcased renowned media artists and scientists who have pioneered interactive art forms, digital technologies, and perspectives on the information age. The Center also co-sponsored the "Art, Technology and Culture Lecture Series" and a series of seminars in collaboration with the Visual Effects Society. "Making New Media Work at Berkeley" was the theme of the 1998 BMRC retreat. It brought together faculty from many campus departments to exchange ideas on using new media in teaching and research. We will continue to provide public programs for the campus and Bay Area community throughout 1998-99.

The last year has been a productive and exciting one at BMRC. We are especially pleased that our goal of strengthening ties with the campus community--faculty, students and administrators--has been realized. These collaborations, and the development, deployment, and testing of new multimedia communication technologies such as BIBS, promise to make the next year particularly fruitful as we expand our experiments with multimedia to enhance education, professional practice, and research.