Welcome Message from the General Chair

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to QoMEX 2012 which is not only in a new country but a new hemisphere as well. QoMEX 2012 also brings a change in workshop style adopting an ‘all-in’ approach at the top-quality ‘Heritage Yarra Valley’ venue. Hopefully, you will find some time to explore the attractions of the venue which include golf courses, a day spa and extensive gardens and grounds for jogging, nature walks or bird watching along the Yarra River. The Yarra Valley itself is a world renowned wine region and an area of outstanding natural beauty. In Australia, it is known not only for its wines but also for local and international cuisine and we hope that you will get a chance to sample these during the workshop.

The workshop attracted 63 full papers with 42 being accepted and 30 short papers with 13 accepted. It has to be noted that the overall quality of papers submitted was very high and that QoMEX is already attracting a substantial ‘repeat’ participant list. The papers have been organised around a single track of oral papers, posters and a tutorial session. There are also two panel sessions to encourage discussion around current and emerging issues in our field.

The Organizing Committee have arranged three Plenary Talks for the workshop (from Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller, Stefan Winkler and George Wright), all bringing a quite different view to Quality of Multimedia Experience. We have endeavoured to ensure that we see technical aspects of opinion scoring, through to exploratory work in ‘exertion games’ to the latest from the media industry which is seeing significant change and impact from our work. We hope you will find the talks enjoyable and stimulating. Accompanying the plenaries, Sebastian Egger, Tobias Hossfeld, Raimund Schatz

and Markus Fiedler have put together a tutorial on Waiting Times and QoE which promises new thoughts on these vital aspects of user experience. To extend discussion further Andrew Perkis and Bastiaan Kleijn have kindly agreed to host discussion panels which aim to stimulate discussion long after the panels themselves!

Since this is a ‘residential’ workshop, we have taken full advantage of the venue in offering all meals for delegates at the venue as well as the social event. This brings opportunities for casual and more detailed discussions across the dinner table and around the venue as well as in the more formal sessions. Friday evening’s social event will be a visit to Yering Station, a well-known Yarra Valley winery where we will find out more about the Quality of Experience achieved by oenology and viticulture.

The workshop has been a significant team effort and I would particularly like to thank the Technical Program Chairs, Christian Timmerer, Alexander Raake, and Christian Ritz for their diligent coordination of the reviewing and program planning. Of course, their work would not have been possible without the work of the many reviewers who dedicated time to reviewing and revising the submissions.

Finally, I must thank our sponsors: Qualinet, the European COST network, the IEEE, the IEEE Signal Processing Society, RMIT University, the Smart Services CRC and National Instruments. Also, the Steering Committee gave invaluable input at various vital points in the organisation.The workshop would have been impossible without the help of these sponsors and we gratefully acknowledge their input.

Please enjoy the QoMEX 2012 Workshop, the hospitality of the Yarra Valley and your experience of Australia!

Ian Burnett, RMIT University General Chair

Organising Committee