Interactive temporal behaviours and modelling for multimedia presentations in the WWW environment

Due to the widespread distribution and the nature of hyperlinks on the WWW system, interactive temporal behaviours that exist in the WWW environment are different from those used in traditionally distributed multimedia presentation environments. Therefore, the control scheme and model of a new temporal synchronization that can guarantee the presentation continuity within the multimedia WWW environment is required. In this paper we will: (i) classify interactive temporal behaviours that are associated with user interactions, i.e. `replay', `freeze-restart', `skip&go-to', `hold&go-to' and `end&go-to', into two classes, intrapage user and interpage interactive temporal behaviours; (ii) identify the link control with some temporal constraints; (iii) derive temporal interactive synchronization control schemes to resolve the permitted interactive temporal behaviours and the system's link behaviour; and (iv) propose the extended finite state machine (EFSM) approach that is able to formally model the corresponding interactive temporal and link control architecture and schemes.