Media Synchronization on the Web

The Web is a natural platform for multimedia, with universal reach, powerful backend services, and a rich selection of components for capture, interactivity, and presentation. In addition, with a strong commitment to modularity, composition, and interoperability, the Web should allow advanced media experiences to be constructed by harnessing the combined power of simpler components. Unfortunately, with timed media this may be complicated, as media components require synchronization to provide a consistent experience. This is particularly the case for distributed media experiences. In this chapter we focus on temporal interoperability on the Web, how to allow heterogeneous media components to operate consistently together, synchronized to a common timeline and subject to shared media control. A programming model based on external timing is presented, enabling modularity, interoperability, and precise timing among media components, in single-device as well as multi-device media experiences. The model has been proposed within the W3C Multi-device Timing Community Group as a new standard, and this could establish temporal interoperability as one of the foundations of the Web platform.