E nhancing Video Accessibility and Availability Using Information-Bound References
Abstract: Users are often frustrated when they cannot view video links shared via blogs, social networks, and shared bookmark sites on their devices or suffer performance and usability problems when doing so. While other versions of the same content better suited to their device and network constraints may be available on other third-party hosting sites, these remain unusable because users cannot efficiently discover these and verify that these variants match the content publisher's original intent. Our vision is to enable consumers to leverage verifiable alternatives from different hosting sites that are best suited to their constraints to deliver a high quality of experience and enable content publishers to reach a wide audience with diverse operating conditions with minimal upfront costs. To this end, we make a case for information-bound references or IBRs that bind references to video content to the underlying information that a publisher wants to convey, decoupled from details such as protocols, hosts, file names, or the underlying bits. This paper addresses key challenges in the design and implementation of IBR generation and resolution mechanisms, and presents an evaluation of the benefits IBRs offer.