Mediacaptain - an interface for browsing streaming media

The increase of bandwidth and streaming technology has made video on the Web the current "killer-app" of the dot-com world. However, users still face many problems. Users have to find the right video and the right segment within the video. Locally stored files provide easy (but still not very sophisticated) access to individual points in the video by utilizing a seek slider. If the video is streamed over the Internet, this slider loses much of its attraction. Every accessed point in the video requires the video player to buffer, which causes a time lag. The mediacaptain is a system that addresses this issue by using supplementary material like text and graphics to provide indices. This time-aligned material is used to help the user make an informed decision on whether they want to watch a video and if so, what portions. This web-enabled prototype called mediacaptain emerged from user surveys and is demonstrated on several content types and represents an advanced experience with video on the Web.