There's a gap in consumer communications on how networks, devices, and services handle and identify space & time in media resources in the Web. W3C's Media Fragments URI specification, which we edited and contributed to over the last couple of years, not only bridges this gap by homogeneously opening up time-related media to the Internet crowd, but also makes time-related annotation feasible for hyperlinking into that media, thus finally also providing the necessary support for this already omnipresent `third dimension' time into the Internet. As such, this uniform approach using the standardised (semantic) web technology stack will improve search, discovery, usage, management, security, and linking of related media resources and its fragments.

HTTP adaptive streaming was introduced with the general idea that user agents interpret a manifest file (describing different representations and segments of the media); where-after they retrieve the media content using sequential HTTP progressive download operations. MPEG started with the standardization of an HTTP streaming protocol, defining the structure and semantics of a manifest file and additional restrictions and extensions for container formats. At the same time, W3C is working on a specification for addressing media fragments on the Web using Uniform Resource Identifiers. The latter not only defines the URI syntax for media fragment identifiers but also the protocol for retrieving media fragments over HTTP. In this paper, we elaborate on the role of Media Fragment URIs within HTTP adaptive streaming scenarios. First, we elaborate on how different media representations can be addressed by means of Media Fragment URIs, by using track fragments. Additionally, we illustrate how HTTP adaptive streaming is realized relying on the Media Fragments URI retrieval protocol. To validate the presented ideas, we implemented Apple's HTTP Live streaming technique using Media Fragment URIs.

In this demonstration, we present NinSuna, a fully integrated multimedia content adaptation platform based on Semantic Web technologies. Moreover, we show how NinSuna can be used as a server-side implementation of W3C Media Fragment URIs, which enables addressing media fragments on the Web using URIs.

A number of different approaches exist to deliver multimedia content to the end-user through the Web. Within classic client-server architectures, three main media delivery methods exist: HTTP download, real-time streaming, and HTTP streaming. The latter combines the advantages of both the HTTP download and the traditional streaming approach. In this paper, we provide an overview and analysis of two existing technologies which are based on HTTP streaming: Smooth Streaming and HTTP Live Streaming. Further, we propose an enhancement for HTTP Streaming, called BSD-based HTTP streaming. This enhanced media delivery technique works on an ordinary HTTP Web server, makes use of existing metadata specifications, and does not apply any restriction regarding the media formats used and the way media resources are organized on the server.

In this paper, we describe two examples of implementations of the Media Fragments URI specification which is currently being developed by the W3C Media Fragments Working Group. The group's mission is to create standard addressing schemes for media fragments on the Web using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). We describe two scenarios to illustrate the implementations. More specifically, we show how User Agents (UA) will either be able to resolve media fragment URIs without help from the server, or will make use of a media fragments-aware server. Finally, we present some ongoing discussions and issues regarding the implementation of the Media Fragments specification.

Today, users often want to consume personalized versions of multimedia content (e.g., a selection of the most interesting video scenes). These user preferences can be fulfilled by performing semantic adaptations, which are typically guided by semantic metadata. In this paper, we discuss how high-level semantic adaptations along the temporal axis can be performed using format-independent adaptation engines. Further, the impact of semantic adaptations applied to synchronized multimedia streams (e.g., synchronized audio and video streams) is investigated. H.264/AVC and AAC are used to evaluate our proposed approach, which relies on a format-independent adaptation framework based on MPEG-B BSDL and STX.

Multimedia content adaptation is gaining importance because of the growing amount of multimedia content on the one hand and the growing diversity in usage environments on the other hand. Furthermore, to deal with the growing amount of coding formats for multimedia content, format-independent adaptation systems are desired. These systems support the exploitation of scalability to meet the usage environment, as well as semantic adaptations to meet the user preferences. In this demonstration, we present NinSuna, a fully integrated multimedia content adaptation platform based on semantic web technologies. It aims at being deployable in streaming environments and relies on format-independent semantic-aware adaptation engines.

Due to the increasing heterogeneity in network and terminal capabilities, the delivery of multimedia content has become an important issue today. In order to avoid offering multiple versions of the same media resource, a transparent approach under the form of scalable coding is needed for multimedia delivery systems. This paper proposes a fully format agnostic adaptation engine for scalable bitstreams by relying on an abstract model for these bitstreams. The adaptation technique is implemented by making use of the MPEG-21 Digital Item Adaptation specification. The approach is validated for five different scalable coding formats. Experimental results show that our fully format agnostic adaptation node customizes scalable bitstreams in real time (at a speed of more than 100 Mbit/s).

The heterogeneity in the contemporary multimedia environments requires a format-agnostic adaptation framework for the consumption of digital video content. Scalable bitstreams can be used in order to satisfy as many circumstances as possible. In this paper, the scalable extension on the H.264/AVC specification is used to obtain the parent bitstreams. The adaptation along the combined scalability axis of the bitstreams is done in a format-independent manner. Therefore, an abstraction layer of the bitstream is needed. In this paper, XML descriptions are used representing the high-level structure of the bitstreams by relying on the MPEG-21 bitstream syntax description language standard. The exploitation of the combined scalability is executed in the XML domain by implementing the adaptation process in a streaming transformation for XML (STX) stylesheet. The algorithm used in the transformation of the XML description is discussed in detail in this paper. From the performance measurements, one can conclude that the STX transformation in the XML domain and the generation of the corresponding adapted bitstream can be realized in real time.

Due to the increasing heterogeneity in the current multimedia landscape, the delivery of multimedia content has become an important issue today. This heterogeneity is not only reflected by a plethora of different usage environments, but also by the presence of multiple (scalable) coding formats. Therefore, format-independent adaptation engines have to be used within a multimedia delivery platform, which are able to adapt the multimedia content according to a certain usage environment, independent of the underlying coding format of the content. By relying on automatically created textual descriptions of the high-level syntax of binary media resources, a format-independent adaptation engine can be built. MPEG-21 generic bitstream syntax schema (gBS schema) is a tool that is part of the MPEG-21 multimedia framework. It enables the use of generic bitstream syntax descriptions (gBSDs), i.e., textual descriptions in XML, to steer the adaptation of a binary media resource, using format-independent adaptation logic. In this paper, we address the design and performance evaluation of a multimedia delivery platform that relies on gBS schema-driven adaptation engines. Our platform is called MuMiVA; it is a fully integrated, extensible platform for multimedia delivery in heterogeneous usage environments, using streaming technologies. To demonstrate the flexibility of our multimedia delivery platform, we discuss the functioning of two different applications (i.e., exploitation of temporal scalability and shot selection) applied to two different coding formats (i.e., MPEG-4 visual and H.264/AVC).