Web-based mediaspaces (Mediascape and videoServer)

Mediaspaces [1] use a combination of audio, video and computing to provide awareness, communication and collaboration services to distributed groups of users. Mediaspaces are often used in conjunction with other applications, such as shared editors or agendas, but they are not integrated with these tools: they have their own user interfaces that are often cumbersome to operate.

Since 1995, I have been exploring the use of Web standards and protocols to seamlessly integrate access to mediaspaces within the existing work environment, (i.e., documents and applications), building upon existing work practices rather than creating new ones. This work led to Mediascape [2], a Web-controlled analog audio/video mediaspace and videoServer [3], a Web server dedicated to digital video communication. It was also the first application of the videoSpace toolkit.

For more information on Mediascape and videoServer, see [4, 5]. A few screenshots and videos (16 Mb, 32 Mb, 116 Mb) are also available.

References

[2] N. Roussel. Mediascape: a Web-based Mediaspace. IEEE Multimedia, 6(2):64-74, April-June 1999. [IEEE] [Google]

[3] N. Roussel. Beyond Webcams and Videoconferencing: Informal Video Communication on the Web. In Proceedings of the British Computer Society HCI Conference on The Active Web, Stafford, pages 65-69, January 1999. [Google]

[4] N. Roussel. Web-Based Mediaspace. In Handbook of Internet Computing, chapter 9, pages 205-226, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, June 2000. [CRC Press] [Google]

[5] N. Roussel. Support informatique à une communication médiatisée. Thèse de Doctorat, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France, Juillet 2000. 190 pages. [Google]