A model-driven approach to content repurposing

The multimedia metamodel defines platform-independent multimedia concepts, opening the way for novel approaches to designing content repurposing solutions. Designers can use the metamodel to create content and add metadata to existing content, simplifying content analysis and repurposing. This model-driven approach and proposed design solutions are useful not only for many multimedia designers and researchers, where the model-driven tools can help them create better multimedia interfaces, but also for lecturers and students of multimedia courses. In the latter case, the unified multimedia metamodel offers context for sometimes subtle relationships between multimedia concepts. The metamodel can also facilitate the collaborative creation of broader knowledge about multimedia phenomena. In our future work, we plan to extend the proposed metamodel and include domains from related fields, such as user modeling and intelligent tutoring systems that deal with high-level user models. We are also designing multimodal test environments, reusable multimedia components, and data mining tools for evaluating various aspects of multimedia and multimodal communication.     

Personally customizable content authoring service for Internet Protocol television subscribers

In this paper, we propose a personally customizable content authoring service (C2Channel) using an Internet Protocol television (IPTV) platform, in which a user terminal such as a PC or set‐top box sends various kinds of multimedia files from a camera or camcorder to a remotely located authoring server (C2Channel server). The C2Channel server creates personalized content in real time by combining special effects with the multimedia files transmitted from the user terminal and then retransmits them to a predefined relevant service group as a personal IPTV channel through an IPTV network provider. This content authoring service supplies an automatic multimedia editing/composition service and offers unicast, multicast, and groupcast services for a large number of interested groups via an IPTV‐based real‐time media delivery platform (Open Live IPTV Engine [OLIVE]), in which a service management server is used for user identification through the IPTV personal channel. Because this platform uses a remote server resource when authoring personally customizable content, resources remaining at the user's terminal can be variously utilized. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Queueing model based resource optimization for multimedia cloud

Multimedia cloud is a specific cloud computing paradigm, focusing on how cloud can effectively support multimedia services. For multimedia service providers (MSP), there are two fundamental concerns: the quality of service (QoS) and the resource cost. In this paper, we investigate these two fundamental concerns with queueing theory and optimization methods. We introduce a queueing model to characterize the service process in multimedia cloud. Based on the proposed queueing model, we study resource allocation problems in three different scenarios: single-service scenario, multi-service scenario, and priority-service scenario. In each scenario, we formulate and solve the response time minimization problem and the resource cost minimization problem, respectively. We conduct extensive simulations with practical parameters of Windows Azure. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed resource allocation schemes can optimally allocate cloud resources for each service to achieve the minimal response time under a certain budget or guarantee the QoS provisioning at the minimal resource cost.     

The Roma Personal Metadata Service

People now have available to them a diversity of digital storage facilities, including laptops, cell phone address books, handheld devices, desktop computers and web-based storage services. Unfortunately, as the number of personal data repositories increases, so does the management problem of ensuring that the most up-to-date version of any document in a user's personal file space is available to him on the storage facility he is currently using. We introduce the Roma personal metadata service to make it easier to locate current versions of personal files and ensure their availability across different repositories. This centralized service stores information about each of a user's files, such as name, location, timestamp and keywords, on behalf of mobility-aware applications. Separating out these metadata from the data respositories makes it practical to keep the metadata store on a highly available, portable device. In this paper we describe the design requirements, architecture and current prototype implementation of Roma.     

A Cross-Layer Packet Scheduling Scheme for Multimedia Broadcasting via Satellite Digital Multimedia Broadcasting System [Advances in Mobile Multimedia]

In recent years, multimedia content broadcasting via satellite has attracted increased attention. The satellite digital multimedia broadcasting (S-DMB) system has emerged as one of the most promising alternatives for the efficient delivery of multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS). The design of an efficient radio resource management (RRM) strategy, especially the packet scheduling scheme, becomes a key technique for provisioning multimedia services at required quality of service (QoS) in S-DMB. In this article, we propose a novel cross-layer packet scheduling scheme that consists of a combined delay and rate differentiation (CDRD) service prioritization algorithm and a dynamic rate matching (DRM)-based resource allocation algorithm. The proposed scheme considers multiple key factors that span from the application layer to the physical layer, aiming at simultaneously guaranteeing diverse QoS while utilizing radio resources efficiently under the system power and resource constraints. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed cross-layer scheme achieves significantly better performance than existing schemes in queuing delay, jitter, and channel utilization.     

QoS Recovery Schemes Based on Differentiated MPLS Services in All-Optical Transport Next Generation Internet

The Internet is evolving from best-effort service toward an integrated or differentiated service framework with quality-of-service (QoS) assurances that are required for new multimedia service applications. Given this increasing demand for high bandwidth Internet with QoS assurances in the coming years, an IP/MPLS-based control plane combined with a wavelength-routed dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) optical network is seen as a very promising approach for the realization of future re-configurable transport networks. Fault and attack survivability issues concerning physical security in a DWDM all-optical transport network (AOTN) require a new approach taking into consideration AOTN physical characteristics. Furthermore, unlike in electronic networks that regenerate signals at every node, attack detection and isolation schemes may not have access to the overhead bits used to transport supervisory information between regenerators or switching sites to perform their functions. This paper presents an analysis of attack and protection problems in an AOTN. Considering this, we propose a framework for QoS guarantees based on the differentiated MPLS service (DMS) model and QoS recovery schemes against QoS degradation caused by devices failures or attack-induced faults in an AOTN. We also suggest how to integrate our attack management model into the NISTs simulator—modeling, evaluation and research of lightwave networks (MERLiN).     

An Architecture for Service Quality Management Using Cooperative Communications

The rapid enhancement and explosive expansion of mobile communication systems will lead to an increased demand for multimedia services. Various multimedia contents will be available due to the proliferation of IPTV, video on demand, user-generated content, and content-centric networking. Therefore, multimedia service quality is becoming a critical issue. The static allocation of network resources may not be sufficient to guarantee the required service quality of multimedia in wireless networks. For ensuring the service quality, it is important to manage the resources considering the overall performance of the network and the end system. In particular, a certain level of service quality should be maintained regardless of the network situation. To achieve this objective, we first propose an architecture for service quality management and then present a detailed framework and mechanisms to maintain the desired service quality using the cooperation between communication entities in wireless networks. Simulation results are also presented to show that the proposed framework works well in wireless networks.     

QoS provisioning for multimedia wireless networks

As we move towards IP-based multimedia wireless networks with voice, video and data convergence, quality of service (QoS) provisioning will become an increasingly challenging task. One implication is that greater emphasis on managing the call admission and overall network resources will be needed. This paper presents a conservative and adaptive quality of service (CAQoS) framework for provisioning the QoS for both real-time and non-real-time traffic in a multimedia wireless network. Unlike most conventional schemes, which gradually scale down the bandwidth of ongoing connections to accommodate new connection/hand-off requests, CAQoS introduces an early scaling-down of bandwidth for new connections based on a designated provisioning model. The performance of a CAQoS system is evaluated through simulations of a realistic wireless environment. Simulation results show that CAQoS meets our design goals and outperforms conventional schemes.     

Content Protective Multi‐Agent Platform for MsMu Service and Pattern‐Based Content Management

Recent research on mobile Internet protocol television and digital right management (DRM) interconnections has focused on multimedia technologies designed to enhance content scalability and adaptive content distribution. However, due to the architectural and scalable limitations, recent systems are not flexible and securable with respect to their adaptive content distribution and protective policy management. Therefore, we propose a content protective multi‐agent platform that provides secure multimedia services, correlation management, pattern‐based management, and multisource multi‐use (MsMu)‐based services. Our architecture, supported by DRM, lets us create a rich set of MsMu‐based content protection and seamless multimedia services through the extension of one source multi‐use (OsMu)‐based content services. We have verified our platform, which provides scalable and securable services with a 17% lower service response time by using a testbed.     

Nom 2.0: innovative network operations and management for business agility [technology leaders forum]

Faced with growing fierce competitive pressure on all fronts and market saturation, traditional telecommunication operators are now struggling to find the breakthrough approach by which they may successfully reshape their role from network service providers to multimedia service providers. They are re-examining their voice-centric business models and deploying next-generation networks (NGN) for QoS-guaranteed delivery of multimedia quadruple play services (QPSs). To cost effectively realize these paradigm shifts, the existing ";stability-oriented"; network operations and management infrastructure and processes should be migrated into ";service-oriented"; and ";business-driven"; network operations and management within the context of today's multimedia and converged business environments. In this article, I'd like to introduce Network Operations and Management 2.0 (NOM 2.0), which is an innovative next generation operations and management paradigm for telephone company business agility and customer value creation. KT recently proposed Telco 2.0 [1], a new role and business model in the IP world to create customer value. NOM 2.0 is a key component needed to realize the Telco 2.0 goals. Telcos need to transform their operations and management framework into a human-centric and highly intelligent and automated one, and become the market leader by providing an agile operation and management framework within ever-changing operations and business environments. I will describe what NOM 2.0 is and how it is being realized in my company, KT.     

Management of service level agreements for multimedia Internetservice using a utility model

The efficient management of a quality level of Internet service is becoming increasingly important to both customers and service providers. This article describes how service level agreements for multimedia Internet service can be managed and controlled. We first present a literature survey on the problems of SLA management: SLA parameter definition, SLA measurement, and QoS management. We present a utility model to capture the management and control aspects of SLAs for multimedia Internet service. This utility model has been used in microeconomics theory, but here we have applied it to SLA management. This model provides a computationally feasible solution for admission control and quality adaptation for multimedia Internet service and SLA management. It also allows management policies to be flexibly expressed by service providers. Finally, we apply the utility model to the SLA management of VoIP service and describe how to use it for admission control, dynamic quality adaptation, and resource allocation for SLA assurance     

Multimedia Retrieval and Delivery: Essential Metadata Challenges and Standards

Multimedia information retrieval (MIR) and delivery plays an important role in many application domains due to the increasing need to identify, filter, and manage growing amounts of data, notably multimedia information. To efficiently manage and exchange multimedia information, interoperability between coded data and metadata is required and standardization is central to achieving the necessary level of interoperability. In the context of this paper, the term retrieval refers to the process by which a user, human or machine, identifies the content it needs, and the term delivery refers to the adaptive transport and consumption of the identified content in a particular context or usage environment. Both the retrieval and delivery processes may require content and context metadata. This paper will argue that maximum quality of experience depends not only on the content itself (and thus content metadata) but also on the consumption conditions (thus context metadata). Additionally, the rights and protection conditions have become critically important in recent years, especially with the explosion of electronic music commerce and different ldquoshoppingrdquo conditions. This paper will review existing multimedia standards related to information retrieval and adaptive delivery of multimedia content, emphasizing the need for such standards, and will show how these standards can help the development, dissemination, and valorization of MIR research results. Moreover, it will also discuss limitations of the current standards and anticipate what future standardization activities are relevant and needed. Due to space limitations, the paper will mainly concentrate on MPEG standards although many other relevant standards are also reviewed and discussed.     

Content production and delivery for interactive multimedia services — a new approach

An increasing number of multimedia services are being launched, many of which are Internet based. New, reliable, low-cost services must generate customer demand and sustain customer satisfaction.One of the technical directors from the computer games company, Sega, has been quoted as saying that the games platform is only an enabler; apart from price, three further things are required: content, content, content. This statement holds good for any interactive multimedia service, the content is what the consumer is seeking to access — and indeed most of what the consumer is paying for.This paper presents a framework covering the authoring and distributed handling of content and its associated metadata (i.e. data associated with the content which is used by the application and its platform but not necessarily viewed by the end user, for example, a movie rating). It focuses primarily on the specification of both content and metadata and discusses the relationships between processes collectively operating as a generic tool-set.     

PosCFS+: A Self‐Managed File Service in Personal Area Network

Wearable computers consisting of various small devices such as smart phones, digital cameras, MP3 players and specialized I/O devices in personal area networks will play an important role in future ubiquitous computing. In this environment, accessing user data is quite complex due to the dynamic and heterogeneous characteristics of the underlying networks. Moreover, since the amount of user data increases rapidly, automatic data backup management is also critical. To overcome these challenges, several studies have been conducted including our previously proposed file service system, PosCFS, which could be adapted to the requirements with a virtualization technique allowing per‐user global namespace for managing and accessing data stored on physical storage spaces detected in PAN. In this paper, we present a smart file service framework, PosCFS+ which is an improved and extended version of our previous work. Performance improvement is made possible by redesigning the metadata management scheme based on database and keywords rather than ontology. In addition, the automatic data replication management is newly designed based on the OSD protocol.     

Video delivery technologies for large-scale deployment of multimedia applications

Deployment of a large-scale multimedia streaming application requires an enormous amount of server and network resources. The simplest delivery technique allocates server resources for each specific request. This technique is very expensive and is not scalable to support a very large user community such as the Internet. Hence, the past decade has witnessed tremendous research efforts to facilitate cost-effective, large-scale deployment of multimedia streaming applications. In this paper, we describe three complementary research approaches: server transmission schemes using multicast, streaming strategies with application layer multicast, and proxy caching techniques. We discuss pros and cons of these technologies and provide our observations on current business solutions.