Viswanathan Swaminathan

MPEG-J: Java application engine in MPEG-4

MPEG-4 Systems version 1 defines the presentation engine for the MPEG-4 terminal. MPEG-J is the Java based application engine defined in the version 2 of the MPEG-4 standard. This facilitates programmatic control as opposed to the parametric control provided by the presentation engine. MPEG-J refers to the collection of Java APIs defined by the Systems subgroup of MPEG. These APIs are used to access and control the underlying MPEG-4 terminal. The MPEG-J framework also defines the delivery mechanism and the lifecycle of applications. These applications can be local or remote (MPEGlet). They use the MPEG-J APIs to control the MPEG-4 terminal. MPEG-J can be used to include behavior based on time-varying terminal conditions in the content.

Challenges in media delivery systems and servers

Although multimedia compression formats and protocols to stream such content have been around for a long time, there has been limited success in the adoption of open standards for streaming over IP (Internet Protocol) networks. The elements of such an end-to-end system will be introduced outlining the responsibilities of each element. The technical and financial challenges in building a viable multimedia streaming end-to-end system will be analyzed in detail in this paper outlining some solutions and areas for further research. Also, recent migration to IP in the backend video delivery network infrastructures have made it possible to use IP based media streaming solutions in non-IP last mile access networks like cable and wireless networks in addition to the DSL networks. The advantages of using IP streaming solutions in such networks will be outlined. However, there is a different set of challenges posed by such applications. The real time constraints are acute in each element of the media delivery end-to-end system. Meeting these real time constraints in general purpose non real time server systems is quite demanding. Quality of service, resource management, session management, fail-over, reliability, and cost are some important but challenging requirements in such systems. These will also be analyzed with suggested solutions. Content protection and rights management requirements are also very challenging for open standards based multimedia delivery systems. Interoperability unfortunately interferes with security in most of the current day systems. Some approaches to solve the interoperability problems will also be presented. The requirements, challenges, and possible solutions for delivering broadcast, on demand, and interactive video delivery applications for IP based media streaming systems will be analyzed in detail.