A Multimedia Collaboration Application Framework Based on MPEG-4 Standard
Date Issued
2004
Date
2004
Author(s)
Huang, Yi-Chin
DOI
en-US
Abstract
Given the rapid deployment of the broadband network and the wireless network infrastructure and drastic improvement in computational power of CPUs, storage media, display devices, and other hardware technologies, people can jointly and collaboratively access, share and create multimedia contents anytime, anywhere through a variety of pervasive devices such as cell phones, PDAs, and PCs. For examples, they can send messages, share multimedia clips, or participate in multi-user virtual meeting through a variety of collaborative applications. In past years, researches on CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) have been widely adopted to applications of distance learning, military simulation and multiplayer gaming. However, these systems use either proprietary solutions or reform existing technologies to fulfill specified applications. The former is lack of extensibility and interoperability while the latter accommodates the original architecture and is hard to adopt emerging media format or network technology. The goal of this thesis is to design and develop an extensible multimedia collaboration application framework with a core set of common multimedia and collaboration functionalities, so that it can greatly simplify the amount of developers’ efforts in building multimedia collaboration systems.
To design and develop the multimedia collaboration application framework, we have identified the following three core technologies that are of critical importance in the framework. (1) Multimedia Presentation: Due to the improvement of coding standards and prevalence of personalized interactive services, the need for a new class of interactive rich-media presentation technology grows. (2) Multi-User Technology: Given the high demand for internet games and distance learning, an efficient synchronization technology is crucial in achieving consistency in multi-user environment. (3) Multimedia Application Development: For the multimedia application developers, a set of programmable application interface and library are needed to reduce their application development time and cost.
Based on three core technologies, the thesis attempts to use the tools defined by MPEG-4 to develop a multimedia collaboration application framework. The thesis also considers the application engine and multi-user architecture of MPEG-J and MPEG-4 MUW (Multi-User World) during the developing process. We design and develop four corresponding modules, namely (1) MPEG-4 Presentation Engine, (2) Media Access Layer, (3) MPEG-4 Application Engine, and (4) Multiuser Application Server in our multimedia collaboration framework. MPEG-4 Presentation Engine is based on the design of cross-platform MPEG-4 media presentation architecture, enabling media presentation on heterogeneous terminal devices. Through media access layer residing in both client and server side, a multicasting media service has been realized. MPEG-4 Application Engine exposes a set of APIs for the applications to customize the behavior of the underlying presentation engine. Multiuser Application Server provides a programmable architecture and remote function call mechanisms for clients to provide multi-user synchronization.
The thesis provides core functionalities in the framework and allows application developers to develop various Multimedia Collaboration Systems efficiently. To verify the practicability of proposed framework, we have developed a number of systems, including on-line interior design, virtual meeting with shared 3-D objects and multi-user games. Based on the developers’ experience, the framework indeed reduces the application development complexity and cost.
Subjects
分散式
網路串流
互動架構
多使用者
群體合作
媒體呈現
媒體同步
多媒體
Collaboration
Synchronization
Multi-User
Python
MPEG-4
Application Engine
Presentation Engine
Multicast
CSCW
Streaming
Type
thesis
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