Abstract
Originally defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as part of its standardization work for 3G mobile phone systems, the IMS model has been adopted as a baseline technology for network and service convergence by network (wireless, wireline and cable), service and content operators. Dealing with the same business actors, the ENTHRONE project (FP6-IP-507637) builds an MPEG-21-based service management system that enables distribution of audio-visual content with dynamic end-to-end QoS guarantees over heterogeneous networks to various types of terminal devices. This system controls the access of users to the content and supervises the delivery of the content to ensure the level of QoS. The paper examines how the IMS model could be extended to include service management features offered by the ENTHRONE management system. These features could constitute a potential vehicle for the IMS entrance to the audio-visual market chain. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract
Today's available solutions for the production of digitally compressed TV programmes require successive decoding and re-coding operations due both to the multiplicity of digital formats currently in use for signal acquisition and to technology limitations. This has the consequence of increasing the production costs and of reducing the overall signal quality. The ability of using compression also at the production stage will contribute to improve the overall signal quality and to reduce storage requirements and associated costs. The ATLANTIC project (ACTS 078) is developing a digital studio for the production of TV programmes using the MPEG2 format throughout the entire process, from the input of the studio to final programme distribution. EXPO'98, the next international exposition to be held in Lisbon, has been identified as an ideal showcase for audio-visual services developed by ACTS projects. The ATLANTIC project will provide basic infrastructures and technology for compressed-based TV programme production and distribution of audio-visual information and entertainment services for the entire EXPO site. This paper describes the studio reference model of the ATLANTIC project and the role ATLANTIC will be playing within the planned demonstrations of ACTS projects at EXPO'98.

Abstract
First generation of overlay P2P networks had scalability problems although offering useful keyword-base searching functionality. The new generation of structured networks, based on Distributed Hash Tables (DHT), solved the scalability problem but at the same time eliminated the possibility of performing searches by proximity. This can be considered as an effective limitation as users of P2P networks will most often not have the complete information about the data they are looking for. Accordingly they tend to submit general queries to the network, hoping to receive back a list of results that match their needs. In this paper we describe a solution that is able to profit from the best of the two approaches. It relies on a two-layer architecture, offering on the top layer a set of Web Services to upload, search and retrieve content and on the bottom layer a fully structured P2P network (DHT-based) for distribution and downloading efficiency. Central to our solution, is the use of distributed databases, implemented at the top layer, holding descriptive metadata of the uploaded digital objects. The developed system also makes use of the JXTA project at the top layer and the Bit Torrent suite of protocols at the bottom layer. © 2009 IADIS.

Abstract
As the social character of the Web grows stronger, online multimedia resources become more tangled, exhibiting multiple and complex relationships. Often, these relationships are not easily spotted by search engines because they are not explicit. Still, when searching for content, users would certainly appreciate to receive results indicating all resources that are somehow related to their topic of interest without having to explicitly request for it. In spite of this trend, current technology for declaring and describing resources on the Internet as well as their inter-relationships is very much fragmented and the most commonly used standards, such as HTML, do not offer adequate functionality. While the goal of the MPEG-21 standard is to provide an all encompassing, universal and standard way to perform the declaration of digital resources, the work being developed in the IST CONVERGENCE project has shown that this standard, (specifically its part 3, Digital Item Identification), also has a limited ability to specify relationships between digital resources. This document presents a proposed extension to MPEG-21 Digital Item Identification, which enables it to support a uniform, semantically expressive and precise specification of the relationships between MPEG-21 digital items, rendering it a much more effective tool for a ubiquitous representation and interconnection of digital resources. © 2011 IEEE.

Abstract

Abstract
This article presents a platform designed for context-aware and digital rights management-enabled content adaptation based on MPEG-21's Digital Item Adaptation scheme and a unique profiling approach.