Understand the MPEG-21 Multimedia Framework, the standard for the creation, delivery and consumption of multimedia. This text is the comprehensive guide to MPEG-21, the technology that provides an open framework for multimedia applications. Whereas previous MPEG standards defined compression techniques, MPEG-21 offers methods for the search, access, storage and Rights protection of content. The MPEG-21 Book offers a complete introduction to standardisation, before proceeding to discuss the vision behind MPEG-21, what ‘Digital Items’ are, how they are adapted and how their contents can be protected. The book provides coverage of the individual parts of the standard to an advanced level, with chapters dedicated to each of the core technologies. The authors describe not only the present situation, but also emerging developments and the relation of MPEG-21 to the other MPEG standards, giving essential insights into the future of MPEG and its impact on multimedia. The MPEG-21 Book: Provides an accessible explanation of the MPEG-21 standards and specifications. Presents a comprehensive overview of the technical issues that MPEG-21 covers, including the foundational Digital Item Declaration, Digital Item Identification, Digital Item Adaptation, and Digital Item Processing. Offers in-depth and up-to-date coverage of Rights Expression Language and Rights Data Dictionary. Provides first detailed treatments of Event Reporting and IPMP Components. Reviews the new MPEG technologies Multimedia Middleware, Multimedia Application Formats (MAFs) and Digital Item Streaming. The MPEG-21 Book will provide an essential resource to researchers, engineers, Internet designers, systems designers, and content providers, creators and distributors in the entertainment and broadcasting industries. Students in communications technology, media technology and multimedia signal processing will also find it an invaluable guide to this cutting-edge technology.

This second edition provides easy access to important concepts, issues and technology trends in the field of multimedia technologies, systems, techniques, and applications. Over 1,100 heavily-illustrated pages — including 80 new entries — present concise overviews of all aspects of software, systems, web tools and hardware that enable video, audio and developing media to be shared and delivered electronically.

This authoritative guide to multimedia networking balances just the right amount of theory with practical design and integration knowledge.

This book provides a comprehensive examination of the use of MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MPEG-7, MPEG-21, and MPEG-A standards, providing a detailed reference to their application. In this book, the authors address five leading MPEG standards: MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MPEG-7, MPEG-21, and MPEG-A, focusing not only on the standards themselves, but specifically upon their application (e.g. for broadcasting media, personalised advertising and news, multimedia collaboration, digital rights management, resource adaptation, digital home systems, and so on); including MPEG cross-breed applications. In the evolving digital multimedia landscape, this book provides comprehensive coverage of the key MPEG standards used for generation and storage, distribution and dissemination, and delivery of multimedia data to various platforms within a wide variety of application domains. It considers how these MPEG standards may be used, the context of their use, and how supporting and complementary technologies and the standards interact and add value to each other. Key Features: Integrates the application of five popular MPEG standards (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MPEG-7, MPEG-21, and MPEG-A) into one single volume, including MPEG cross-breed applications Up-to-date coverage of the field based on the latest versions of the five MPEG standards Opening chapter provides overviews of each of the five MPEG standards Contributions from leading MPEG experts worldwide Includes an accompanying website with supporting material (www.wiley.com/go/angelides_mpeg) This book provides an invaluable reference for researchers, practitioners, CTOs, design engineers, and developers. Postgraduate students taking MSc, MRes, MPhil and PhD courses in computer science and engineering, IT consultants, and system developers in the telecoms, broadcasting and publishing sectors will also find this book of interest.

This book brings together leading research from engineers and practitioners interested in the technical advances, business and industrial applications of intelligent systems. AIAI 2007 is focused on providing insights on how AI can be implemented in real world applications. Topics covered in this volume include: Theoretical Advances in AI; Intelligent Internet Systems: Emerging Technologies and Applications; Intelligent Systems in Electronic Healthcare; AI in Business and Finance.

The emerging idea of the semantic web is based on the maximum automation of the complete knowledge lifecycle processes: knowledge representation, acquisition, adaptation, reasoning, sharing and use. Text-based based browsers involve a costly information-retrieval process: descriptions are inherently subjective and usage is often confined to the specific application domain for which the descriptions were created. Automatic extracted audiovisual features are, in general, more objective, domain-independent and can be native to the audiovisual content. This book seeks to draw together in one concise volume the findings of leading researchers from around the globe. The focus, in particular, is on the MPEG-7 and MPEG-21 standards that seek to consolidate and render effective the infrastructure for the delivery and management of multimedia content. Provides thorough coverage of all relevant topics, including structure identification in audiovisual documents, object-based video indexing, multimedia indexing and retrieval using natural language, speech and image processing methods Contains detailed advice on ontology representation and querying for realizing semantics-driven applications Includes cutting-edge information on multimedia content description in MPEG-7 and MPEG-21 Illustrates all theory with real-world case studies gleaned from state-of-the-art worldwide research. The contributors are pioneers in the fields of multimedia analysis and knowledge technologies This unified, comprehensive up-to-date resource will appeal to integrators, systems suppliers, managers and consultants in the area of knowledge management and information retrieval; particularly those concerned with the automation of the semantic web. The detailed, theory-based practical advice is also essential reading for postgraduates and researchers in these fields.