An Adaptive Standard Meta-data Aware Proxy Cache

Multimedia is gaining ever more importance on the Internet. This increases the need for intelligent and efficient video caches. A promising approach to improve caching efficiency is to adapt videos. With the availability of MPEG-4 it is possible to develop a standard compliant proxy cache that allows fast and efficient adaptation. We propose a modular design for an adaptive MPEG-4 video proxy that supports efficient full and partial video caching in combination with filtering options that are driven by the terminal capabilities of the client. We use the native scalability operations provided by MPEG-4, the MPEG-7 standard to describe the scalability options for a video and the emerging MPEG-21 standard to describe the terminal capabilities. In this paper, we will restrict ourselves to full video caching. The combination of adaptation with MPEG-4, MPEG-7 and client terminal capabilities is to the best of our knowledge unique and will increase the quality of service for end users.