Researchers at CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences have published an IETF Internet Draft for Specification of the Continuous Media Markup Language (CMML) Version 1.0, serving as a companion to the Specification of the ANNODEX Annotation Format for Time-Continuous Bitstreams Version 1.0. The XML-based ANNODEX Annotation Format and CMML are designed to solve the problem of "dark matter" on the Internet: continuous media files such as audio and video files are typically unsearchable, and thus are not indexed by common text-based search engines. Such multimedia files also represent dead ends in that, "by consuming their content, the hyperlinking functionality of the Web is left behind." The ANNODEX Internet Draft "specifies a file format for interleaving of XML markup with time-continuous data giving ANNODEX(TM) format media. The ANNODEX format, together with the Continuous Media Markup Language (CMML) and the URI standard, extended by temporal URI references, builds the basis technology to enable searching and surfing of time-continuous data via existing Web infrastructure. The ANNODEX format enables encapsulation of any type of streamable time-continuous bitstream format thus being independent of current or future compression formats. The XML tags were chosen to be very similar to XHTML to enable a simple transfer of knowledge for HTML authors. The XML tags required to create ANNODEX format media consist of two types of frames: header and anchor frames." A file extension .anx and a corresponding mime-type application/annodex for ANNODEX format bitstreams are presented.

Bibliographic Information

• Specification of the Continuous Media Markup Language (CMML), Version 1.0. By Silvia Pfeiffer (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation CSIRO, Australia; WWW) and Conrad D. Parker (CSIRO; WWW). IETF Network Working Group, Internet-Draft. Reference: 'draft-pfeiffer-cmml-00'. June 8, 2003, expires December 7, 2003. 32 pages. Appendix A supplies the CMML DTD. Appendix B provides an example CMML document.

• Specification of the ANNODEX Annotation Format for Time-Continuous Bitstreams, Version 1.0. By Silvia Pfeiffer (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation CSIRO, Australia; WWW) and Conrad D. Parker (CSIRO; WWW). IETF Network Working Group, Internet-Draft. Reference: 'draft-pfeiffer-annodex-00'. June 8, 2003, expires December 7, 2003. 34 pages. Appendix A supplies the Head frame DTD; Appendix B supplies the Anchor frame DTD.

Introduction to CMML Draft

"Time-continuous data in the ANNODEX(TM) format contains XML-based annotations and hyperlinking information that enables it to be browsed by client applications, and crawled and indexed by search engines. The Continuous Media Markup Language CMML is a simple markup language for authoring the XML data to be multiplexed with the time-continuous data given in binary bitstreams. This process eventually creates ANNODEX(TM) format bitstreams. The CMML has much in common with XHTML.

"The CMML can describe one or several time-continuous media bitstreams. It is used to create all the tags required for authoring the annotation information for the ANNODEX(TM) format. It therefore basically contains the same tags as the annotation bitstream in ANNODEX(TM) format bitstreams, but also has some additional tags required for identifying and synchronising one or several time-continuous bitstreams that will be multiplexed together for the creation of one conherent ANNODEX(TM) format bitstream."

"The file extension of CMML files is .cmml. This document also applies for registration of the mime-type text/cmml for CMML files."

"The CMML is technically fully specified through its DTD as given in the Appendix. The semantic meaning of each of the tags, their content and their attributes is specified in the following sections. The Appendix also contains an example of a CMML (instance) document." [excerpted]

Excerpts from ANNODEX Draft

The format of ANNODEX(TM) bitstreams consists of a bitstream of time-continuous data interspersed with structured XML mark-up of an annotation bitstream. It is designed to be used both as a persistent file format and as a streaming format. Any encoding format for time-continuous data can be encapsulated in the ANNODEX(TM) format as long as it is streamable and is based on a regular data sampling rate (called granulerate). XML mark-up is inserted between media packets at the synchronised point in time.

There are two types of XML mark-up that are inserted: a header frame ("head"), and an arbitrary number of anchor frames ("a"). There is only one head at the start of an annotation bitstream. It contains structured and unstructured meta data describing the complete time-continuous data bistream. In the simple case, an anchor frame contains information on the fragment of media between the current anchor and the next one (or the end of the document if none follows).

A "head" frame is an XML document that contains information about the complete ANNODEX(TM) format bitstream. It is enclosed in "head" tags. The DTD for the "head" frame can be found at http://www.annodex.net/DTD/anxhead_1_0.dtd. It can be used for validation of a "head" frame.

An anchor frame ("a") is an XML document that contains information about a fragment of the encapsulated time-continuous bitstream. It is active from the time instant in the time-continuous bitstream at which it is inserted until the time instant at which it is deactivated either through another anchor frame (on the same annotation track) or through the end of the file. It is enclosed in "a" tags. The DTD for the "a" frame can be found at http://www.annodex.net/DTD/anxa_1_0.dtd. It can be used for validation of an "a" frame.

IPR Notice

The following IPR note accompanies the two IDs: "At this point in time, the right to produce derivative works is not granted to the IETF as the authors are uncertain about the necessity to create a working group. The specification is not encumbered by patents. The ANNODEX(TM) format is protected by a trademark to prevent the use of the term 'annodex' for any related but non-conformant and therefore non-interoperable technology."