Collaborative Annotation of Videos Relying on Weak Consistency

This work discusses a distributed interactive video system that supports video annotation using simultaneous hyperlinking by multiple users. The users mark and annotate objects within the video with links to other media such as text, images, websites, or other videos. Annotations are visualized on the client user interface as an overlay close to the objects. Our system is intuitive to use; for example, it contains automatic object-tracking functionality that correctly positions the annotations, even when the form or location of an object changes. Thus, our first contribution discusses the adaptive object-tracking algorithm used for this repositioning. It shows improved precision and reliability in comparison to nonadaptive algorithms. A second key issue is to keep the system responsive when the number of concurrent annotators increases. Thus, we rely on the concept of eventual consistency between different network entities. While this weak form of consistency allows temporary inconsistencies, it ensures that a consistent state can be reached. Thus, the second contribution is the design and evaluation of our distributed interactive video system, which relies on the weak consistency paradigm.