Abstract Nowadays, users are demanding an increasing amount of multimedia content (viewing videos, streaming contents in real time, using video-conferences for communication, etc.), but it is usually necessary to perform advanced operations in those video streams to adapt them to their different requirements. For example, it is necessary to transcode or to rescale those streams to adapt them to the display... Nowadays, users are demanding an increasing amount of multimedia content (viewing videos, streaming contents in real time, using video-conferences for communication, etc.), but it is usually necessary to perform advanced operations in those video streams to adapt them to their different requirements. For example, it is necessary to transcode or to rescale those streams to adapt them to the display of the users device or to the available bandwidth, as well as mixing the different media streams for multiuser video-conferences. In the world of telephony, Media Servers perform this kind of operations for large amounts of users. To improve their performance, hardware acceleration devices, such as Graphics Processing Unit (GPUs), are typically used. Nevertheless, thanks to the high graphic computing power that require modern smartphones, current Systems-on-Chip (SoC) devices include high performance embedded GPUs. In order to evaluate the viability to use off the shelf embedded devices, that include different SoCs, to implement a Media Server, it is necessary to evaluate if such devices are able to perform different video operations in real time. In this paper, we evaluate and compare the performance of different embedded GPUs in order to know if they are suitable as low cost Media Servers. Read More Read Less

Abstract Cartoons are an informative way for creating awareness; children take keen interest in watching cartoons and spend leisure time in front of television. Unfortunately there is an increasing trend of violence and other objectionable scenes in cartoon videos that have very bad impact on personality of young age groups. Extensive use of such violent scenes in media (movie and TV... Cartoons are an informative way for creating awareness; children take keen interest in watching cartoons and spend leisure time in front of television. Unfortunately there is an increasing trend of violence and other objectionable scenes in cartoon videos that have very bad impact on personality of young age groups. Extensive use of such violent scenes in media (movie and TV programs) is one of the factors of increase of violence in society. In this paper different low-level visual features are evaluated for violence detection in cartoon videos using indigenously developed dataset that is categorized as violent and non-violent. From our results it has been observed that low-level visual features could not be used efficiently for the detection of violence. However these features are very helpful in identifying the character and situation that if combined with a knowledgebase capability can be used for detection of violence and other objectionable elements in the cartoon clips. Read More Read Less

Abstract From the multimedia research, a number of design principles have been developed in order to improve learning by reducing burden on working memory load (i.e., the multimedia principles). However, very little of this research has attempted to examine learners’ preferences of multimedia design. As a result, the purpose of this study was to examine learners’ preferences for multimedia in order... From the multimedia research, a number of design principles have been developed in order to improve learning by reducing burden on working memory load (i.e., the multimedia principles). However, very little of this research has attempted to examine learners’ preferences of multimedia design. As a result, the purpose of this study was to examine learners’ preferences for multimedia in order to see if design principles align with learner preferences. The results of the study indicate that learners’ preferences partially align with the multimedia principles. Learners preferred multiple to single representations, which is directly in-line with the multimedia principle. However, learners overwhelmingly preferred text + narration + images which directly violates the redundancy principle. They indicated that they prefer options. They enjoy seeing the images and then want to choose if they want to listen, read, or do both. Given these results, it is clear that the multimedia principles are not always aligned with learner preferences. Read More Read Less