CLIENT-CENTRIC USAGE ENVIRONMENT ADAPTATION USING MPEG-21

Abstract

Enabling universal multimedia access either focuses research on content adaptation or on the usage environment adaptation. When a client device makes a single video streaming request, either the streaming server adapts the video or the client device adapt its own properties. Where a client device makes multiple concurrent video streaming requests across several streaming servers, if the streaming servers adapt the videos, then concurrent local video adaptation may easily result in a network bottleneck and if the client device adapts its own properties without any consideration of the bandwidth requirements of each video request, of the local usage environment, of the streaming servers’ resources and available adaptation solutions then this may easily result in a device bottleneck. In this paper we propose a client-centric usage environment adaptation framework which allows a client device to generate multiple concurrent video streaming requests across several video streaming servers and using MPEG-21 tools describe the client’s and servers’ usage environment, constraints and resource adaptation policies, determine optimal adaptation solutions and bandwidth requirements for each video request and distribute adaptation across the servers.