Interoperable adaptive multimedia communication

The desire to gain access to rich, multimedia-based information anywhere, anytime grows enormously. To achieve such access, the research and standardization communities have launched an initiative called universal multimedia access (UMA). However, UMA tools and specifications that have so far emerged concentrate mostly on constraints imposed by terminals and networks along the multimedia delivery chain; users who consume the content are rarely considered. Researchers have developed a plethora of technologies and standards to address some of the issues. However, the big picture of how these different technologies and standards fit together is missing. Thus, the moving picture experts group (MPEG) decided to standardize the MPEG-21 multimedia framework with the ultimate goal to support users during the exchange, access, consumption, trade, or other manipulation of so-called digital items in an efficient, transparent, and interoperable way. Device and coding-format-independent multimedia content adaptation standardization committees such as MPEG, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are exploring device and coding format independence issues. Here, however, we focus on how we can use the tools specified within MPEG-21 for interoperable multimedia communication.