The document discusses MPEG-21 digital items in research and practice. It provides an introduction to MPEG-21 and its basic concepts of digital items, users, and the structure of resources, metadata, and relationships within a digital item. It then summarizes several research projects and practical applications that utilize MPEG-21 digital items, including DIDL-Lite, DANAE, ENTHRONE, P2P-Next, and information asset management at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The document concludes by noting challenges to large-scale interoperability but potential benefits from standards like MPEG-21 and MPEG Extensible Middleware.

1. MPEG-21 Digital Items inResearch and PracticeChristian Timmerer and Hermann HellwagnerKlagenfurt University (UNIKLU)  Faculty of Technical Sciences (TEWI)Department of Information Technology (ITEC)  Multimedia Communication (MMC)http://research.timmerer.com  http://blog.timmerer.com  mailto:christian.timmerer@itec.uni-klu.ac.atDigital Preservation Interoperability Framework (DPIF) SymposiumDresden, Germany22 April 2010http://www.slideshare.net/christian.timmerer

2. OutlineMPEG-21 IntroductionDigital Item in Research and PracticePractice: DIDL-Lite & LANLResearch: DANAE, ENTHRONE, P2P-NextConclusions2010/04/222Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, Austria➪ more information at http://slidesha.re/7UB13

3. Introduction to MPEG-21 – Vision… to enable transparent and augmented use of multimedia resources across a wide range of networks, devices, user preferences, and communities, notably for trading (of bits)Assumption: every human is potentially a node of a network involving billions of …content providersvalue adderspackagersservice providersconsumersresellers2010/04/22Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, Austria3

4. MPEG-21: Basic ConceptsWhat ? – Digital Items (DIs)A Digital Item (DI) is a structured digital object with a standard representation, identification, and metadata within the MPEG-21 frameworkDigital Items are “the content”Who ? – Users A User is any entity that interacts in the MPEG-21 environment or makes use of a Digital ItemUsers will assume rights and responsibilities according to their interaction with other UsersAll parties that have a requirement within MPEG-21 to interact are categorized equally as Users2010/04/22Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, Austria4Digital Item = Resources + Metadata + StructureResources: individual assets, (distributed) contentMetadata: (distributed) data about or pertaining to the DI or its resourcesStructure: relationships among the parts of the DI

5. MPEG-21 Organisation – Parts2010/04/22Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, AustriaDigitalRightsManagementAdaptationProcessingSystemsMiscPt. 7: DigitalItem AdaptationPt. 10: DigitalItem ProcessingPt. 9: FileFormatPt. 8: ReferenceSoftwarePt. 11: PersistentAssociation Amd.1: Add‘lC++ bindings Pt. 16: BinaryFormatAmd.1: Convers.And PermissionsPt. 4: IPMPComponentsPt. 12: Test Bed Amd.2: Dynamicand DistributedAdaptationPt. 18: DigitalItem StreamingPt. 5: RightsExpression LangPt. 14: Conform.Pt. 15: EventReporting Pt. 6: RightsData DictionaryPt. 17: FragmentIdenficationPt. 19: Media ValueChain Ontology Vision, Declaration, and IdentificationPt. 1: Vision, Technologiesand StrategyPt. 2: Digital ItemDeclarationPt. 3: Digital ItemIdentification5

6. Digital Item in Research and Practice PracticeUPnP: DIDL-Lite(dialect ofMPEG-21 DIDL)Microsoft’s InteractiveMedia Manager (IMM):OWL implementation ofDID modelAdactus(www.adactus.no)Enikos(www.enikos.com)ContentGuard(www.contentguard.com) and Rightscom(www.rightscom.com) ResearchDANAE: Advanced MPEG-21 InfrastructureENTHRONE: End-to-End Management of Heterogeneous EnvironmentsAXMEDIS: Automated Production of Cross-Media Digital Items P2P-Next: Next Generation P2P SystemsLos Alamos National Laboratory (LANL): Information Asset Management in a Digital Library 2010/04/22Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, Austria6

7. UPnP: DIDL-LiteDIDL dialectUPnP-specific objectsclass, container, res-attr.Dublin Core metadatadescfor anything else2010/04/22Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, Austria7

8. Information Asset Management in a Digital LibraryDID: representing (and serializing) complex digital library objectsDII: identificationof DIDsand assets thereinDIP: dynamically add processing informationto DIDs2010/04/22Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, Austria8

9. DANAE: Advanced MPEG-21 InfrastructureDID + DIA + DIP2010/04/22Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, Austria9http://danae.rd.francetelecom.com/End-to-end representationof The ContentUsage Environment DescriptionAdaptation Quality of ServiceUniversal Constraints Descriptiongeneric Bitstream Syntax DescriptionManages the open sessions, retrieves orgeneratesand customizes museum catalogue and content DIDs according to the context of a user, delivers the DIDs, and invokes the adaptation engine if required. Clearly, the server side DIP engine is also involved in session migration activities.

10. ENTHRONE: End-to-End Management for QoSBusiness entitiesContent Provider: prepares the actual multimedia content as MPEG-21 Digital Items Service Provider: MM services to end-user wrtSLAsAdaptation Provider: QoS of content delivery; optimizing available system and network resources across the end-to-end chain Network Provider: QoS-based network connectivity services at its autonomous domain level2010/04/22Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, Austria10http://www.ist-enthrone.org/

11. Next Generation Peer-to-Peer Networks2010/04/22Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, Austria11http://p2p-next.org/P2P networks:Distributioncost sharedamongst the peersKey requirementBackwards compatibility with BitTorrentDID: declaration of P2P-Next ItemsDII: identification and type settingDIA: adaptation and scalability metadata

12. ConclusionsMPEG-21: powerful, generic, and flexible for a plethora of use cases and application domainsDeployment issuesInteroperability on a large (end-to-end) scale in practical settings is difficult to achieveComplex middleware and intricate interplay between various layer and levels (e.g., application, transport, network, system, etc.)Benefits for a single stakeholder in the multimedia chain?Potential users might still be insufficiently aware of the MPEG-21 family of standardsThere is still hope ➪ MPEG Extensible Middleware (MXM), a comprehensive middleware comprising application programming interfaces (APIs) and protocols 2010/04/22Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, Austria12➪ See http://mxm.wg11.sc29.org/ for details

13. Thank you for your attention... questions, comments, etc. are welcome …Ass.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Christian TimmererKlagenfurt University, Department of Information Technology (ITEC)Universitätsstrasse 65-67, A-9020 Klagenfurt, AUSTRIAchristian.timmerer@itec.uni-klu.ac.athttp://research.timmerer.com/Tel: +43/463/2700 3621 Fax: +43/463/2700 3699© Copyright: Christian Timmerer132010/04/22Christian Timmerer, Klagenfurt University, Austria