With this post we’d like to kick-off the call for papers for the various tracks, sessions, and workshop which are co-located with ACM MMSys 2016. Please note that all papers accepted for publication within these events will be included within the MMSys proceedings or have their own proceedings to be put into the ACM Digital Library.

All these events follow the same schedule and important dates are as follows:

• Submission deadline: February 519, 2016
• Acceptance notification: March 23, 2016
• Camera ready deadline: April 8, 2016

Dataset Track

MMSys encourages the use of common datasets for experimentation leading to reproducible research. Therefore, the Dataset Track is an integral part of the conference since 2012 and provides an opportunity for researchers and practitioners to make their work available and citable. Read more here…

Chair: Karel Fliegel, (Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic)

Demo Session

MMSys provides researchers, engineers, and scientist the opportunity to showcase their research prototypes, systems, and applications to MMSys attendees. Demos are intended as real, practical, and interactive proof of the presenters’ research ideas and scientific or engineering contributions, with the goal of providing multimedia researchers and practitioners with the opportunity to discuss working multimedia systems, applications, prototypes, or proof-of-concepts. Read more here…

Chairs: Omar Niamut (TNO, The Netherlands) and Michael Zink ( University of Massachusetts in Amherst, USA)

Special Session on Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is an emerging interface concept which is at the confluence of many state-of-the-art technologies and trends. Research in augmented reality deals especially with systems issues and integration of technologies, and often involves innovative system design as well the development of novel system components. Read more here…

Chairs: Jonathan Ventura (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA) and Carl S. Marshall (Intel, USA)

Special Session Media Synchronization (MediaSync)

Media synchronization has been a key research area since the early development of (distributed) multimedia systems. Over the years, solutions to achieve intra- and inter-media synchronization in a variety of (mostly audiovisual) applications and scenarios have been proposed. However, it is not by far a solved research problem, as the latest advances in multimedia systems bring new challenges. Read more here…

Chairs: Pablo Cesar (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, CWI, Netherlands), Fernando Boronat (Universitat Politècnica de València, UPV, Spain), Mario Montagud (CWI & UPV), Alexander Raake (Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany), and Zixia Huang (Google, USA)

Workshop on Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video (NOSSDAV 2016)

NOSSDAV will continue to focus on both established and emerging research topics, high-risk high-return ideas and proposals, and future research directions in multimedia networking and systems, in a single-track format that encourages active participation and discussions among academic and industry researchers and practitioners. Out-of-the-box ideas are particularly welcome. Read more here…

Chairs: Hermann Hellwagner (AAU, Austria) and Eckehard Steinbach (TUM, Germany)

Workshop on Massively Multiuser Virtual Environments (MMVE 2016)

MMVE provides a forum for researchers and practitioners in the field, and will encourage discussions based on the presented papers to identify current and future research topics. For this edition, we particularly solicit contributions related to the various challenges that recent advances in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Read more here…

Chair: Jean Botev (Univ. of Luxembourg)

Workshop on Mobile Video (MoVid 2016)

In the last few years, there has been a tremendous increase in mobile video content generation and delivery. This trend has forced the service providers to understand the limitations of the current wired and wireless networks (Internet, WiFi, 4G/LTE cellular) and bring new technologies for delivering the video content to the end-user. Read more here…

Chairs: Pål Halvorsen (Simula/Univ. Oslo) and Qi Han (Colorado School of Mines)

The ACM MMSys’16 paper submission deadline was on December 11 and we received 71 submissions which will be considered for review. We’d like to thank all authors for their hard work in the past weeks and months! Now we will start with the review process and reviews shall be available to authors by January 22, 2016 followed by a rebuttal period and discussion among the technical program committee.

In the meantime please enjoy some winter pictures from Klagenfurt and lake Wörthersee. If you have any questions or comments please free to contact us.

Due to a reasonable number of requests, the deadline for ACM MMSys 2016 will be extended as follows:

Submission deadline: December 11, 2015 (11:59:59pm PST)
*** hard deadline; no further extensions ***

The submission site has been updated accordingly. Please feel free to register your paper now and you can update it until the submission deadline. During paper registration and upload please make sure to select any topics that apply to your paper which shall ease the review assignments. Finally, please obey the author guidelines when submitting a paper to ACM MMSys’16.

Another overview talk at ACM MMSys 2016 will be held by Dr. Gheorghita Ghinea from the School of Information Systems and Computing at Brunel University, United Kingdom on

Mulsemedia = multiple sensorial media = novelty or reinvention?

Abstract: Traditionally, multimedia applications have primarily engaged two of the human senses ? the audio and the visual ? out of the five possible. With recent advances in computational technology, it is now possible to talk of applications that engage the other three senses, as well: tactile, olfaction, and gustatory. This integration leads to a paradigm shift away from the old multimedia towards the new mulsemedia : multiple sensorial media. In his talk, Dr. Ghinea is going to focus on the issue of the perceptual experience of mulsemedia and how research in the area has opened new and sometimes challenging opportunities for mulsemedia applications.

Slides: here

Video:

Bio: Dr. Gheorghita Ghinea is a Reader in the School of Information Systems and Computing at Brunel University, United Kingdom. He received the B.Sc. and B.Sc. (Hons) degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics, in 1993 and 1994, respectively, and the M.Sc. degree in Computer Science, in 1996, from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; he then received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Reading, United Kingdom, in 2000. His research activities lie at the confluence of Computer Science, Media and Psychology. In particular, his work focuses on the area of perceptual multimedia quality and building end-to-end communication systems incorporating user perceptual requirement. He has over 250 publications in leading international conferences and journals; Dr. Ghinea has co-edited two books on Digital Multimedia Perception and Design, and Multiple Sensorial Media Advance and Applications. He leads a team of 8 researchers and consults regularly to both public and private organisations and bodies in his areas of research expertise.

ACM MMSys 2016 will feature a series of overview talks and one of them will be held by Prof. Bernhard Rinner from the Institute of Networked and Embedded Systems, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria on

Smart Camera Systems

Abstract: Smart cameras combine video sensing, processing, and communication on a single embedded platform. Networks of smart cameras are real-time distributed embedded systems that perform computer vision using multiple cameras. This new approach has emerged thanks to a confluence of simultaneous advances in four key disciplines: computer vision, image sensors, embedded computing, and sensor networks. Recently these networks have gained a lot of interest in research and industry; applications include surveillance, assisted living and smart environments. In this talk I will introduce some fundamentals of the emerging field of smart camera systems, present selected examples and discuss trends and challenges for future systems.

Slides: here

Video:

Bio: Bernhard Rinner is professor at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria where he is heading the Pervasive Computing group. He is deputy head of the Institute of Networked and Embedded Systems and served as vice dean of the Faculty of Technical Sciences from 2008-2011. Before joining Klagenfurt he was with Graz University of Technology and held research positions at the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin in 1995 and 1998/99.

His current research interests include embedded computing, sensor networks and pervasive computing.  Bernhard Rinner has been co-founder and general chair of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Distributed Smart Cameras and has served as chief editor of a special issue on this topic in The Proceedings of the IEEE.  Currently, he is Associate Editor for Ad Hoc Networks Journal and EURASIP Journal on Embedded Systems. Together with partners from four European universities, he has jointly initiated the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate Program on Interactive and Cognitive Environments (ICE). He is member of IEE and IFIP and member of the board of the Austrian Science Fund.

The first keynote for ACM MMSys 2016 is confirmed and will be held by Prof. Dieter Schmalstieg from the Institute for Computer Graphics and Vision at Graz University of Technology, Austria

Advances and Trends in Augmented Reality Systems [Slides]

Abstract: Augmented Reality is an emerging new medium, with the potential of becoming very important for any kind of mobile computer use. However, creating Augmented Reality applications that go beyond proof of concept is very challenging, as it requires the successful combination of many non-trivial elements: The technology must be real-time, human-in-the-loop, accurate and precise, context-aware, and work outdoors, operated by potentially naive users. The talk will draw examples from 20 years of experience in Augmented Reality research to highlight trends and directions for future real-world systems.

Video:

Bio: Dieter Schmalstieg is full professor and head of the Institute for Computer Graphics and Vision at Graz University of Technology, Austria. His current research interests are augmented reality, virtual reality, computer graphics, visualization and human-computer interaction. He received Dipl.-Ing. (1993), Dr. techn. (1997) and Habilitation (2001) degrees from Vienna University of Technology. He is author and co-author of over 300 peer-reviewed scientific publications with over 10,000 citations, with over ten best paper awards and nominations. His organizational roles include associate editor in chief of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, member of the editorial advisory board of computers & graphics and of the Springer Virtual Reality journal, member of the steering committee of the IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, chair of the EUROGRAPHICS working group on Virtual Environments (1999-2010), key researcher of the K-Plus Competence Center for Virtual Reality and Visualization in Vienna and key researcher of the Know-Center in Graz. In 2002, he received the START career award presented by the Austrian Science Fund. In 2012, he received the IEEE Virtual Reality technical achievement award for seminal contributions to the field of Augmented Reality. He was elected as a senior member of IEEE, as a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and as a member of the Academia Europaea. Since 2008, he is also director of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Handheld Augmented Reality.

Due to multiple requests and as the original deadline collides with Thanksgiving we’d like to announce that the submission deadline for ACM MMSys 2016 full papers has changed to

December 4, 2015 (11:59:59pm PST).

The submission system has been updated already and we wish all a Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the holidays with your families!

–ACM MMSys 2016 Organization Team

The autumn shows itself from its best side here in Klagenfurt and this is the final call for papers for ACM MMSys 2016 full papers with Adobe and YouTube as gold sponsor and featuring the Excellence in DASH Award sponsored by the DASH-IF.

The ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys) provides a forum for researchers to present and share their latest research findings in multimedia systems. While research about specific aspects of multimedia systems are regularly published in the various proceedings and transactions of the networking, operating system, realtime system, and database communities, MMSys aims to cut across these domains in the context of multimedia data types. This provides a unique opportunity to view the intersections and the inter-play of the various approaches and solutions developed across these domains to deal with multimedia data types.

MMSys is a venue for researchers who explore:

• Complete multimedia systems that provide a new kind of multimedia experience or systems whose overall performance improves the state-of-the-art through new research results in one of more components, or
• Enhancements to one or more system components that provide a documented improvement over the state-of-the-art for handling continuous media or time-dependent services.

Such individual system components include:

• Operating systems
• Distributed architectures and protocol enhancements
• Domain languages, development tools and abstraction layers
• Using new architectures or computing resources for multimedia
• New or improved I/O architectures or I/O devices, innovative uses and algorithms for their operation
• Representation of continuous or time-dependent media
• Metrics, measures and measurement tools to assess performance

This touches aspects of many hot topics including but not limited to: adaptive streaming, games, virtual environments, augmented reality, 3D video, Ultra-HD, HDR, immersive systems, plenoptics, 360° video, multimedia IoT, multi- and many-core, GPGPUs, mobile streaming, P2P, clouds, cyber-physical systems.

Submission Guidelines

Papers should be between 6 and 12 pages long (in PDF format) prepared in the ACM style and written in English. The submission site is open and papers can be submitted using the following URL:

/online-paper-submission/

Important dates:

• Submission Deadline: November 27, 2015 December 11, 2015
• Reviews available to Authors: January 18, 2016
• Rebuttal Deadline: January 22, 2016
• Acceptance Notification: January 29, 2016
• Camera-ready Deadline: March 11, 2016

DASH Industry Forum Excellence in DASH Award

This award offers a financial prize for those papers which best meet the following requirements:

1. Paper must substantially address MPEG-DASH as the presentation format
2. Paper must be selected for presentation at ACM MMSys 2016
3. Preference given to practical enhancements and developments which can sustain future commercial usefulness of DASH
4. DASH format used should conform to the DASH IF Interoperability Points as defined by http://dashif.org/guidelines/

Further details about the Excellence in DASH Award can be found here.

In conjunction with ACM MMSys 2016, being held in Klagenfurt Austria, the DASH Industry Forum is proud to announce the establishment of the

DASH Industry Forum Excellence in DASH Award
(http://dashif.org/excellence-in-dash-award-acm-mmsys-2016/)

This award offers a financial prize for those papers which best meet the following requirements:

1. Paper must substantially address MPEG-DASH as the presentation format
2. Paper must be selected for presentation at ACM MMSys 2016
3. Preference given to practical enhancements and developments which can sustain future commercial usefulness of DASH
4. DASH format used should conform to the DASH IF Interoperability Points as defined by http://dashif.org/guidelines/

Three levels of prize are awarded:

1. First place – €1000
2. Second place – €500
3. Third place – €250

Terms:

1. Winners are chosen by a DASH Industry Forum appointed committee and results are final.
2. If papers of sufficient quality are not received, then some or all of the awards may not be granted.
3. The competition is open to any individual, commercial or academic institution.  No preference is given to DASH IF members and membership is not required in order to participate in the competition.

How to enter: in order for your paper to be considered for the competition, please check the checkbox labelled “DASH Award” on the submission page and your paper will be forwarded to the DASH IF for review.

The DASH IF Board
November 1st, 2015