Networked device capability and content media format matching scheme for multimedia access

This paper presents a scheme to dynamically match capabilities of content sinks and media formats of items supplied by content sources to improve interoperability among a wide range of networked CE devices. The scheme proposes the use of transcoders located in external networks (e.g. Internet) when a match is not found locally. Here "media format" refers to the combination of content encoding format and packaging or transport method used to make available the content item on the network. Existing capability matching methods rely on standard repositories agreed a priori such as MIME (multipurpose Internet mail extensions) media types, and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) media format profiles. The proposed scheme based on external transcoders enables support of profiles based on newly invented formats or new combinations of existing formats and packaging or transport methods. This extensible approach makes possible rendering of content items available in media profiles unknown to the renderer. Our capability matching scheme improves media interoperability when compared with existing methods.