Adding functionality to multimedia content in an MPEG-21 scenario

Within the world of multimedia, several standards for content encoding and decoding exist. However, with the current capabilities of multimedia devices only encoding and decoding of multimedia becomes more and more cumbersome. In this paper we explore how interactivity can be added to multimedia content using a new and upcoming standard, ISO/IEC 21000, better known as MPEG-21. The purpose of MPEG-21 is to create an open framework for multimedia delivery and consumption. This framework enables its users to exchange, consume and manipulate a large variety of content in an efficient, transparent and interoperable way. This paper introduces the concept of Digital Item Processing, which allows to include interactivity and functionality in MPEG-21. The feasibility of the MPEG-21 approach is proven by the implementation of a demonstrator on the J2ME platform. Time and memory performance measurements are outlined to demonstrate what the cost of including extra processing information to multimedia content is using MPEG-21