1

MPEG-21 : Goals and Achievements

Ian Burnett, Rik Van de Walle, Keith Hill, Jan Bormans and Fernando Pereira

IEEE Multimedia, October-November 2003

2

Outline Introduction Digital Item (DI) MPEG-21 Spec. Digital Item Declaration (DID) Digital Item Identification (DII) REL and RDD Digital Item Adaptation (DIA) Conclusion

3

MPEG-21 Introduction Goal: ”multimedia framework” to enable

transparent and augmented use of multimedia resources across various networks and devices

Technologies: To create, manage, transport, distribute, and consume Digital Items (DI)

Concepts: fundamental unit of distribution and transaction, DI, and Users interaction with DI.(MPEG-21 Overview, MPEG doc. N5231)

4

Digital Item A structured digital object with a

standard representation, identification and description (metadata)

Fundamental unit of distribution and transaction in MPEG-21 multimedia framework

DI = (resource + metadata + structure) Resource – individual asset or distributed

content Metadata – data description Structure – relationship among parts of digital

item, both resource and metadata

5Figure 1 : Example Digital Item

6

MPEG-21 ”7 Elements”(1) Digital Item Declaration

A uniform and flexible abstraction and interoperable schema for declaring Digital Items

Digital Item Identification and Description A framework for identification and description of any enti

ty regardless of its nature, type or granularity Content Handling and Usage

Provide interfaces and protocols that enable creation, manipulation, search, access, storage, delivery, and re(use) of content across the content distribution and consumption value chain

7

MPEG-21 ”7 Elements”(2) Intellectual Property Management and

Protection The means to enable content to be persistently and reliab

ly managed and protected across a wide range of networks and devices

Terminals and Networks The ability to provide interoperable and transparent acce

ss to content across network and terminal Content Representation

How the media resources are represented Event Reporting

The metrics and interfaces that enable Users to understand precisely the performance of all reportable events within the framework

8

9

MPGE-21 Spec. Part 1 – Vision, Technologies and Strategy Part 2 – Digital Item Declaration (DID) Part 3 – Digital Item Identification (DII) Part 4 – Intellectual Property Management and Protection

(IPMP) Part 5 – Rights Expression Language (REL) Part 6 – Rights Data Dictionary (RDD) Part 7 – Digital Item Adaptation (DIA) Part 8 – Reference Software Part 9 – File Format Part10 – Digital Item Processing (DIP) Part 11 Evaluation Tools for Persistent Association Part 12 Test Bed for MPEG-21 Resource Delivery Part 13 Scalable video coding Part 14 Conformance

10

MPGE-21 Spec.(Cont1.) Vision, technologies, and strategy

describes the multimedia framework and its architectural elements

Digital Item Declaration (DID) provides a uniform and flexible abstraction and

interoperable schema for declaring Digital Items

Digital Item Identification (DII) defines the framework for identifying any entity

regardless of its nature, type, or granularity

11

MPGE-21 Spec.(Cont2.) Intellectual property management and

protection (IPMP) provides the means to reliably manage and

protect content across networks and devices Rights Expression Language (REL)

specifies a machine-readable language that can declare rights and permissions using the terms as defined in the Rights Data Dictionary

Rights Data Dictionary (RDD) specifies a dictionary of key terms required to

describe users’ rights

12

MPGE-21 Spec.(Cont3.) Digital Item Adaptation (DIA)

defines description tools for usage environment and content format features that might influence the transparent access to the multimedia content

Reference software includes software that implements the tools

specified in the MPEG-21 Spec. File format

defines a file format for storing and distributing Digital Items.

13

MPGE-21 Spec.(Cont4.) Digital Item Processing (DIP)

defines mechanisms for standardized and interoperable processing of the information in Digital Item.

Test bed for MPEG-21 resource delivery provides a software-based test bed for

delivering scalable media and testing/evaluating this scalable media delivery in streaming environments

14

Digital Item DeclarationDID model : (XML-based)

•Container – logical package

•Item – grouping sub-items and/or components bounded to relevant descriptions

•Component – binding of a resource to descriptors

•Examples: CD package with music + video + graphics

15

16

Figure 3. Example Digital Item Declaration

17

Digital Item Identification (DII) Uniquely identify Digital Items Identification : a tag (number, …), e.g.,ISBN Syntax: Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)

urn : mpeg:mpeg21:diid:sss:nnn sss = name of the identification system nnn = unique identifier within that identification

system Ex: ISAN:3943…=Int’s Standard Audiovisual Nu

mber:3934…

18

19

REL and RDD Rights Expression Language (REL)

A machine-readable language that can declare rights and permissions using the terms as defined in the Rights Data Dictionary

Rights Data Dictionary (RDD) A set of clear, consistent, structured,

integrated and uniquely identified Terms to support the MPEG-21 Rights Expression Language

20The REL Data Model

21

REL Data Model 4 key components

Principal (user, compliance devices) Rights (copy, play, download, view, print,…) Resource (the digital content) Condition (when, how, how much times,…)

Example Registered user 8043 can have 10 downloads fro

m compliant device 132 starting from time xxx to time yyy

22

23

Digital Item Adaptation (DIA) Goal : achieve interoperable transparent

access to (distributed) advanced multimedia content by shielding Users from network and terminal installation, management and implementation issues

Usage Environment Description Tools User characteristics, Terminal characteristics, etc.

Resource Adaptability Tools Binary Media Resource Adaptability, etc.

System-Related Tools Session Mobility, etc.

24

Digital Item Adaptation architecture

25

26

Delivery in Heterogeneous Environments

27

Conclusion MPEG-21 is an open standard-based multim

edia framework for multimedia delivery and consumption.

MPEG-21 aims to enable the use of multimedia resources across a wide range of networks and devices.