API (ant ontology, for now) for Media Object 1.0

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mediaont-api-1.0.html
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Abstract

This specification defines an ontology and a client-side API for cross-community data integration of information related to media objects on the Web. The purpose of the ontology and the API is to help circumventing the profileration of video metadata formats by providing partial mappings between the existing formats.

The ontology and API differ in their area of application: The API provides methods for client side processing. The ontology is a description of relations between existing formats, which is used in the API for data integration.

Status of this Document

This document is an editors' copy that has no official standing.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction
    1.1 Purpose of this specification
    1.2 Formats in scope
    1.3 Formats out of scope
2 Terminology and Identifiers
    2.1 Terminology
    2.2 Identifiers of formats
3 Property value types definitions
    3.1 Basic property value types
        3.1.1 URI
        3.1.2 Date
4 Property definition
    4.1 Description of approach for the property definitions
    4.2 Basic properties
        4.2.1 subject
        4.2.2 description
        4.2.3 createDate
        4.2.4 orientation
        4.2.5 rights
        4.2.6 creator
        4.2.7 location created
        4.2.8 location shown
5 API definition
    5.1 The Metadata object
    5.2 Definition of methods for retrieving metadata
        5.2.1 getCreateDate

Appendices

A References
B Acknowledgements (Non-Normative)


1 Introduction

This section is informative.

1.1 Purpose of this specification

This specification defines an ontology and a client-side API for cross-community data integration of information related to media objects on the Web. The purpose of the ontology and the API is to help circumventing the profileration of video metadata formats by providing partial mappings between the existing formats.

The ontology and API differ in their area of application: The API provides methods for client side processing. The ontology is a description of relations between existing formats, which is used in the API for data integration.

Editorial note 
The Working Group is seeking feedback on the question whether the API and the ontology should be seperate specifications, or whether both should be created within one document, since they are closely related.

The properties defined in the ontology focus on usage scenarios related to video on the web. Nevertheless they also take formats into account which are not specific to video, but which are of importance for video. An example of this is information from Dublin Core [Dublin Core].

This specification does not aim on defining new properties for media objects. As a result, there is no detailed description of properties, but mainly references to definitions in existing formats.

1.2 Formats in scope

In this specification the following formats related to media objects on the Web have been taken into account .

Note:

This specification is based on a review of existing formats and the properties they provide. This review does not aim to be complete, and this specification does not aim to cover all properties defined in these formats. The choice of properties is motivated by their wide usage.

2 Terminology and Identifiers

This section is normative.

2.1 Terminology

[Definition: Property]

A property is a name or a label for sets of information from existing formats for media objects on the web. An example property is createDate. In existing formats such a property can have different names like yt:recorded in [YouTube Data API Protocol]. Properties are defined in sec. 4 Property definition.

A property will not be included in this specification if there is no existing format which deploys information related to the property.

[Definition: Resource]

A resource is a media object which contains information related to a property.

[Definition: Mapping]

Mapping is the description of relations between (a) sets of information from existing formats for media objects on the web, and (b) properties. Mappings are defined in sec. 4 Property definition.

[Definition: Property value types]

Property value types are the types of values used in a property. Property value types are defined in sec. 3 Property value types definitions. The are relying mostly on XML Schema data types [XML Schema 2].

[Definition: Method]

Methods are part of the API defined in this specification. They are used to get or set properties in a resource. Methods are defined in sec. 5 API definition.

2.2 Identifiers of formats

The following table lists identifiers which are used to identify formats in this specification.

IdentifierFormatExampleReference
dcDublin Coretbd[Dublin Core]
exifEXIF 2.2tbd[EXIF2.2]
id3ID3tbd[ID3]
iptcIPTCtbd[IPTC]
mrMedia RSStbd[Media RSS]
mpeg7MPEG 7tbd[MPEG 7]
xmpXMPtbd[XMP]
ytYouTube Data API Protocoltbd[YouTube Data API Protocol]

3 Property value types definitions

3.1 Basic property value types

3.1.1 URI

URI "Uniform Resource Identifier" are defined in [RFC 3986]. In this specification the term URI is used since it is well known. However the term is used as meaning IRIs "Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs)" [RFC 3987], that is URIs which may contain non-escaped characters other than ASCII. The data type is anyURI .

4 Property definition

This section is normative.

4.2 Basic properties

4.2.3 createDate

Name of the property: createDate.

Purpose of the property: The date and time the resource was created.

Property value type(s): date

Related methods: see sec. 5.2.1 getCreateDate

Mappings:

5 API definition

5.1 The Metadata object

The Metadata object is used to retrieve metadata across existing formats. It can be invoked in the following manner, assuming an <video> element [HTML 5] with an id attribute with the value MyVid:

Element vid = doc.getElementById("MyVid");
Metadata o2 = vid.getMetadata();
o2.getCreateDate();

The Metadata object provides various methods to retrieve metadata from existing formats. See sec. 5.2 Definition of methods for retrieving metadata for these methods.

5.2 Definition of methods for retrieving metadata

5.2.1 getCreateDate

Date getCreateDate()

Gets the createDate of the resource.

Return value type: Date

Related property: createDate

A References

[Dublin Core]
DCMI Metadata Terms. January 2008. Available at http://dublincore.org/documents/2008/01/14/dcmi-terms/ . The latest version of DCMI Metadata Terms is available at http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/ .
[EXIF2.2]
EXIF 2.2. Specification by JEITA, April 2002. Available at http://www.exif.org/Exif2-2.PDF .
[HTML 5]
Hickson, I., and D. Hyatt. HTML 5. A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML. W3C Working Draft, June 2008. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080610/ . The latest version of HTML 5 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/ .
[MWG Guidelines Image]
Guidelines for handling image metadata, version 1.0.. Metadata Working Group, September 2008. Available at http://www.metadataworkinggroup.com/pdf/mwg_guidance.pdf .
[ID3]
ID3 tag version 2.3.0. February 1999. Available at http://www.id3.org/id3v2.3.0 .
[IPTC]
IPTC Standard Photo Metadata 2008. IPTC Core Specification Version 1.1, IPTC Extension Specification Version 1.0, Document Revision 2, June 2008. Available at http://www.iptc.org/std/photometadata/2008/specification/IPTC-PhotoMetadata-2008.pdf
[Media RSS]
Yahoo! Media RSS Module - RSS 2.0 Module. March 2008. Available at http://search.yahoo.com/mrss .
[MPEG 7]
MPGE 7 tbd.
[MPEG 21]
MPGE 21 tbd.
[RFC 3986]
Berners-Lee, T., R. Fielding, L. Masinter. Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax. RFC 3986, January 2005. Available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt
[RFC 3987]
Dürst, M. and M. Suignard. Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs). RFC 3987, January 2005. Available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3987.txt.
[XML Schema 2]
Biron, P. V. and A. Malhotra. XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Second Edition. W3C Recommendation, October 2004. Available at http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xmlschema-2-20041028/ . The latest version of XML Schema Part 2 is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/ .
[XMP]
XMP Specification Part 2 - Standard Schemas. Adobe, 2008. Available at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/xmp/pdfs/XMPSpecificationPart2.pdf .
[YouTube Data API Protocol]
YouTube Data API Protocol. April 2008. Available at http://code.google.com/intl/en/apis/youtube/2.0/reference.html .

B Acknowledgements (Non-Normative)

This document is the work of the W3C Media Annotations Working Group.

Members of the Working Group are (at the time of writing, and by alphabetical order): Werner Bailer (K-Space), Tobias Bürger (University of Innsbruck), Jaime Delgado (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya), Jean-Pierre EVAIN ((public) Invited expert), Ralf Klamma ((public) Invited expert), WonSuk Lee (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)), Véronique Malaisé (Vrije Universiteit), Erik Mannens (IBBT), Hui Miao (Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.), Thierry Michel (W3C/ERCIM), Frank Nack (University of Amsterdam), Soohong Daniel Park (Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.), Silvia Pfeiffer (W3C Invited Experts), Felix Sasaki (W3C/Keio), Joakim Söderberg (ERICSSON), Ruben Tous (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya), Raphaël Troncy (CWI), Vassilis Tzouvaras (K-Space), Davy Van Deursen (IBBT).

The people who have contributed to discussions on public-media-annotation@w3.org are also gratefully acknowledged.