Mpeg Standards Enabling Universal Multimedia Access

Over the last decade, a wide spectrum of (multimedia) content has become available to an increasing number of users who desire to access it through various devices and over heterogeneous networks. Interoperability is the key for enabling transparent and augmented use of (multimedia) content across a wide range of networks and devices. Standardization efforts within the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), in particular MPEG-7 and MPEG-21, aim to provide appropriate tools for achieving this goal of Universal Multimedia Access (UMA). This tutorial provides, in the first place, the concepts of UMA and corresponding MPEG-7 metadata tools built to support these concepts. Subsequently, the vision, an overview, and the state of the art of the emerging MPEG-21 Multimedia Framework are given. Finally, MPEG-21 Digital Item Adaptation (DIA) tools which implement the “Terminal and Networks Characteristics” key element within the whole framework are illustrated in detail. The goal of MPEG-21 DIA is to achieve interoperable transparent access to (distributed) advanced multimedia content by shielding users from network and terminal installation, configuration, management and implementation issues.