INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION FOR STANDARDISATION
ORGANISATION INTERNATIONALE DE NORMALISATION
ISO/IEC / JTC1 / SC29 / WG11
CODING OF MOVING PICTURES AND AUDIO
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 N4326
July 2001 – Sydney, Australia
| Source: | Requirements |
| Status: | Version 1.0 |
| Subject: | Benefits of MPEG-7: 10 Reasons |
1. MPEG Standards have been Successful in the Marketplace.
MPEG standards, to date, have been extremely successful in the marketplace due to MPEG's unique process of sharing leading-edge technology while protecting intellectual property. MPEG-7 builds on the demonstrated success of this process.
2. Taking Advantage of MPEG-7 Expertise
The contributors to MPEG-7 include experts in every portion of the content value chain: production, post-production, delivery, and consumption. Through this process MPEG-7 has standardized description schemes for content description, management, and organization, as well as navigation, access, user preferences and usage history.
3. Interoperability: rapid uptake of MPEG-7, as it is built on enabling technologies and standards.
MPEG-7 is harmonizing with (or has otherwise harmonized with) other standards that have demonstrated success and acceptance in both traditional media and new media businesses, e.g., W3C (XML, XML Schema), IETF (URI, URN, URL), Dublin Core, ISO/ANSI Thesaurus guidelines, SMPTE Metadata Dictionary, TV-Anytime, etc. This will allow rapid integration into your company's products
ATSC example: MPEG-7 brings ubiquitous MPEG-2 platforms new EPG functionality
Various MPEG-2 solutions are looking to MPEG-7 as the standard for specifying additional program metadata. For example, ATSC recently announced an "RFP for Metadata for Advance Electronic Program Guide (EPG) Functionality". This request for proposal applies to a protocol for the carriage of metadata in an ATSC MPEG-2-based digital television broadcast stream to support advanced EPG functionality in a DTV receiver. The RFP explicitly states that "it is highly desirable that any ATSC standard for enhanced metadata to support advanced EPG features should be harmonized with other standards efforts, such as MPEG-7…"
(Request for Proposal For Potential Revisions to ATSC Standards in the Area of Metadata for Advanced EPG Functionality, ATSC T3/S8 Doc 427, 29 January 2001, http://www.atsc.org/T3S8_Adv_EPG_RFP.pdf )
4. Data Exchange between Subsidiaries
MPEG-7 will enable the content management system at one subsidiary to leverage the content of another subsidiary. For example, broadcasters could categorize, exchange, process and manage assets across boundaries or along an entire supply chain, e.g., from production house to advertising agency tobroadcaster..
5. Market Potential for MPEG-7 Applications
According to a Goldman Sachs projection, the market for content management tools will grow from US$378Million in 2000 to US$4.5Billion by 2005. Interoperable tools sell better than non-interoperable tools. MPEG-7 is the gold standard for content management interoperability, not just entertainment companies - but every company, every industry, everywhere.
6. MPEG-7 will enable a New Generation of Multimedia Applications
MPEG-7 uniquely provides comprehensive standardised multimedia description tools for content. Descriptions for the catalogue level (e.g. title), the semantic level (who, what, when, where) and the structural level (spatio-temporal region, color histogram, timbre, texture) will provide tools for creative developers to generate new waves of multimedia applications. Standardized MPEG-7 description tools, then, are a key enabler of the following application domains:
l Search Engines, Digital Libraries, Broadcast Networks, Entertainment and News Distributors, Streaming Businesses
l Dynamic start-up companies, searching for cutting edge technologies.
l Governmental, Educational, Law, Medical & Remedial Services, and Non-profit organizations looking for digital media solutions. For example, the U.S. Library of Congress receives over 10,000 multimedia items each week, and is committed to a) the long term preservation of these multimedia items in digital format, and b) making much of their collection accessible to U.S. citizens in digital format.
l XML, Metadata, Modeling/Simulation, & Surveillance Industries
l AI Practitioners, Content Creators and Providers.
7. MPEG-4 and MPEG-7 Tools for Killer Applications
With MPEG-7's sister standard, MPEG-4, an ideal combination is made for solutions that require efficient streaming of content, content manipulation, and indexing and retrieval of that content. In particular mobile application developers have already begun to use these two standards and the trend is set to hugely increase as the demand for visual and audio information services continues to grow.
8. MPEG-7 Intellectual Property and Management Protection
MPEG works closely with representatives of the creative industries to ensure that the best possible protection of the rights of stakeholders is maintained both in content and in metadata.
9. MPEG-7 Makes Content More Valuable
Stored audio-visual content, gathered over the years, by broadcasters, libraries, and publishers becomes more valuable because, with MPEG-7 indexing technology, more comprehensive methods are available for users to access and retrieve more detailed descriptions of that content.
10. MPEG-7 provides a seamless path towards increasingly intelligent content management systems
We live in the age of convergence, from the level of production through to distribution and consumption. The technical hardware and communication infrastructure is evolving and will soon reach the point where computing and communications will become embedded in everyday objects and environments. Media will also then become ubiquitous. Ubiquitous media will create a huge demand for new content, and meeting this demand must involve fundamental changes to all stages of media production, management and delivery.
Media archives will become vast and interconnected pools of content, too large to be managed manually. Customization of content within programs, e.g. substitution of structural elements (characters, music, voices) according to viewer desires, content scaling for PDA, cell phones, will be not only possible, but easy and pleasant. MPEG-7 will enable the creation of tools, (through its structured combination of low level features and high-level meta-data), for coping with this "outbreak" of generic content.