The distributed multimedia systems services require optimum resource allocation and application configuration. In multimedia applications intermediate processing should be done among distributed media sources and sinks. Such applications include format conversions and mixing several media streams. To support these applications computers at the intermediate stage are being used to relieving end-users terminals from massive processing loads. It is important to consider that intermediate processing components, IPCs, are not subject to location restrictions. In this thesis the problem of allocating IPCs is discussed. Researchers had already formulated the problem for common structures in multimedia application settings like star shaped graphs and Single-Host-Multiple-Satellite, SHMS, distributed architecture. This work discusses multimedia applications like star shaped graphs on presented Double Star or Double-Host-Multiple-Satellite, DHMS, and Multiple-Host-Multiple-Satellite, MHMS, distributed architectures. Star shaped applications cover typical multimedia systems such as videoconferencing, mixing, multicasting, and Video-on-Demand, VoD, etc.

Resource Management for Distributed Multimedia Systems addresses the problems and challenges of handling several continuous- media data streams in networked multimedia environments. The work demonstrates how resource management mechanisms can be integrated into a stream handling system. The resulting system includes functions for Quality of Service (QoS) calculations, scheduling, determination of resource requirements, and methods to reduce resource requirements. The work explains the following: a suitable system architecture and resource management scheme that allows for the provision and enforcement of QoS guarantee, resource scheduling mechanisms for CPU and buffer space, mechanisms to measure and collect resource requirements, methods to extend resource management to future scenarios by allowing the reservation of resources in advance and offering sealing mechanisms. . Resource Management for Distributed Multimedia Systems is a comprehensive view of resource management for a broad technical audience that includes computer scientists and engineers involved in developing multimedia applications.

The last few years have seen an explosive growth in multimedia computing, communications and applications. This revolution is transforming the way people live, work, and interact with one another, and is impacting the way businesses, government services, education, entertainment, and health care are operating. It is safe to say that the multimedia revolution is underway. Yet, several issues related to modeling, specification, analysis and design of distributed multimedia systems and applications are still challenging both researchers and practitioners.This book addresses fundamental design issues and research topics, related to multimedia systems, and provides a comprehensive study of the issues. The topics covered include: distributed multimedia databases and computing; multiparadigmatic information retrieval; modeling and analysis of distributed multimedia systems; OS support for distributed multimedia systems; multimedia communications and networking; multimedia digital libraries and mail systems; multimedia human-computer interaction; multimedia applications for CSCW, distant education, electronic commerce teleconferencing, telemedicine; visual and multidimensional languages for multimedia applications; multimedia workflows; multimedia stream synchronization. In addition, a number of tutorial and overview articles are included so that the volume strikes a balance between introductory tutorials and advanced topics.

th We are very happy to present the proceedings of the 8 International Workshop on Interactive Distributed Multimedia Systems IDMS 2001, in co-operation with ACM SIGCOMM and SIGMM. These proceedings contain the technical programme for IDMS 2001, held September 4 7, 2001 in Lancaster, UK. For the technical programme this year we received 48 research papers from both a- demic and industrial institutions all around the world. After the review process, 15 were accepted as full papers for publication, and a further 8 as short positional papers, intended to provoke debate. The technical programme was complimented by three invited papers: QoS for Multimedia What’s Going to Make It Pay? by Derek McAuley, E nabling the Internet to Provide Multimedia Services by Markus H- mann, and MPEG-21 Standard: Why an Open Multimedia Framework? by Fernando Pereira. The organisers are very grateful for the help they received to make IDMS 2001 a successful event. In particular, we would like to thank the PC for their first class - views of papers, particularly considering the tight reviewing deadlines this year. Also, we would like to acknowledge the support from Agilent, BTexact Technologies, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft Research, Orange, and Sony Electronics without whom IDMS 2001 would not have been such a memorable event. We hope that readers will find these proceedings helpful in their future research, and that IDMS will continue to be an active forum for the discussion of distributed mul- media research for years to come.

Multimedia Systems discusses the basic characteristics of multimedia operating systems, networking and communication, and multimedia middleware systems. The overall goal of the book is to provide a broad understanding of multimedia systems and applications in an integrated manner: a multimedia application and its user interface must be developed in an integrated fashion with underlying multimedia middleware, operating systems, networks, security, and multimedia devices. Fundamental characteristics of multimedia operating and distributed communication systems are presented, especially scheduling algorithms and other OS supporting approaches for multimedia applications with soft-real-time deadlines, multimedia file systems and servers with their decision algorithms for data placement, scheduling and buffer management, multimedia communication, transport, and streaming protocols, services with their error control, congestion control and other Quality of Service aware and adaptive algorithms, synchronization services with their skew control methods, and group communication with their group coordinating algorithms and other distributed services.

This book addresses fundamental design issues and research topics, related to multimedia systems, and provides a comprehensive study of the issues. A number of tutorial and overview articles are included so that the volume strikes a balance between introductory tutorials and advanced topics.

The first International Workshop on Interactive Distributed Multimedia Systems and Telecommunication Services (IDMS) was organized by Prof. K. Rothermel and Prof. W. Effelsberg, and took place in Stuttgart in 1992. It had the form of a national forum for discussion on multimedia issues related to communications. The succeeding event was "attached" as a workshop to the German Computer Science Conference (GI Jahrestagung) in 1994 in Hamburg, organized by Prof. W. Lamersdorf. The chairs of the third IDMS, E. Moeller and B. Butscher, enhanced the event to become a very successful international meeting in Berlin in March 1996. This short overview on the first three IDMS events is taken from the preface of the IDMS’97 proceedings (published by Springer as Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 1309), written by Ralf Steinmetz and Lars Wolf. Both, Ralf Steinmetz as general chair and Lars Wolf as program chair of IDMS’97, organized an excellent international IDMS in Darmstadt. Since 1998, IDMS has moved from Germany to other European cities to emphasize the international character it had gained in the previous years. IDMS’98 was organized in Oslo by Vera Goebel and Thomas Plagemann at UniK – Center for Technology at Kjeller, University of Oslo. Michel Diaz, Phillipe Owezarski, and Patrick Sénac successfully organized the sixth IDMS event, again outside Germany. IDMS'99 took place in Toulouse at ENSICA. IDMS 2000 continued the tradition and was hosted in Enschede, the Netherlands.