Synote Mobile Outputs List

In the first meeting three outputs were discussed namely:

  1. Design and development of the Synote web app suitable for mobile technologies
  2. Conversions of permitted recordings to suit the mobile platform
  3. Issues related to media types, transcriptions and annotations.

There is now a web app capable of working in the majority of browsers working on a mobile device running an Android, Windows, Apple iOS system.  Content can be found at http://linkeddata.synote.org/

It was found that the easiest way to make conversions suitable for Synote Mobile was to use YouTube with its captioning and transcription service that allowed for timed stamped data to be annotated and shared with others  – see recording http://linkeddata.synote.org/synote/recording/replay/52593 

There were numerous issues relating to media types, presentation of transcriptions and annotations that needed to be resolved during the time of the project.  The were discussed in a series of blogs the most important being the development of a matrix to show which browsers could play videos within a browser during the life time of the project.   

It might have been easier to have made a series of device specific apps for Synote mobile which may have offered more usability features in terms of button sizes, menu options and player modes.  However, this would not have allowed for many other access requirements, as was possible through an HTML 5 version.  The final solution works with most browsers despite the lack of player access alongside the transcription on smaller mobile devices, It allows for accessibility with captions and transcriptions where the technology has allowed and provides the user with a way of interacting with others whilst working with video and audio files in one setting.