Service Platform for Converged Interactive Broadband Broadcast and Cellular Wireless

A converged broadcast and telecommunication service platform is presented that is able to create, deliver, and manage interactive, multimedia content and services for consumption on three different terminal types. The motivations of service providers for designing converged interactive multimedia services, which are crafted for their individual requirements, are investigated. The overall design of the system is presented with particular emphasis placed on the operational features of each of the sub-systems, the flows of media and metadata through the sub-systems and the formats and protocols required for inter-communication between them. The key features of tools required for creating converged interactive multimedia content for a range of different end-user terminal types are examined. Finally possible enhancements to this system are discussed. This study is of particular interest to those organizations currently conducting trials and commercial launches of DVB-H services because it provides them with an insight of the various additional functions required in the service provisioning platforms to provide fully interactive services to a range of different mobile terminal types

COSMOS-7: Video-oriented MPEG-7 scheme for modelling and filtering of semantic content

MPEG-7 prescribes a format for semantic content models for multimedia to ensure interoperability across a multitude of platforms and application domains. However, the standard leaves it open as to how the models should be used and how their content should be filtered. Filtering is a technique used to retrieve only content relevant to user requirements, thereby reducing the necessary content-sifting effort of the user. This paper proposes an MPEG-7 scheme that can be deployed for semantic content modelling and filtering of digital video. The proposed scheme, COSMOS-7, produces rich and multi-faceted semantic content models and supports a content-based filtering approach that only analyses content relating directly to the preferred content requirements of the user

An MPEG-7 scheme for semantic content modelling and filtering of digital video

Abstract Part 5 of the MPEG-7 standard specifies Multimedia Description Schemes (MDS); that is, the format multimedia content models should conform to in order to ensure interoperability across multiple platforms and applications. However, the standard does not specify how the content or the associated model may be filtered. This paper proposes an MPEG-7 scheme which can be deployed for digital video content modelling and filtering. The proposed scheme, COSMOS-7, produces rich and multi-faceted semantic content models and supports a content-based filtering approach that only analyses content relating directly to the preferred content requirements of the user. We present details of the scheme, front-end systems used for content modelling and filtering and experiences with a number of users

Individualisation avancée des services IPTV

Le monde de la TV est en cours de transformation de la télévision analogique à la télévision numérique, qui est capable de diffuser du contenu de haute qualité, offrir aux consommateurs davantage de choix, et rendre l'expérience de visualisation plus interactive. IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) présente une révolution dans la télévision numérique dans lequel les services de télévision numérique sont fournis aux utilisateurs en utilisant le protocole Internet (IP) au dessus d une connexion haut débit. Les progrès de la technologie IPTV permettra donc un nouveau modèle de fourniture de services. Les fonctions offertes aux utilisateurs leur permettent de plus en plus d autonomie et de plus en plus de choix. Il en est notamment ainsi de services de type nTS (pour network Time Shifting en anglais) qui permettent à un utilisateur de visionner un programme de télévision en décalage par rapport à sa programmation de diffusion, ou encore des services de type nPVR (pour network Personal Video Recorder en anglais) qui permettent d enregistrer au niveau du réseau un contenu numérique pour un utilisateur. D'autre part, l'architecture IMS proposée dans NGN fournit une architecture commune pour les services IPTV. Malgré les progrès rapides de la technologie de télévision interactive (comprenant notamment les technologies IPTV et NGN), la personnalisation de services IPTV en est encore à ses débuts. De nos jours, la personnalisation des services IPTV se limite principalement à la recommandation de contenus et à la publicité ciblée. Ces services ne sont donc pas complètement centrés sur l utilisateur, alors que choisir manuellement les canaux de diffusion et les publicités désirées peut représenter une gêne pour l utilisateur. L adaptation des contenus numériques en fonction de la capacité des réseaux et des dispositifs utilisés n est pas encore prise en compte dans les implémentations actuelles. Avec le développement des technologies numériques, les utilisateurs sont amenés à regarder la télévision non seulement sur des postes de télévision, mais également sur des smart phones, des tablettes digitales, ou encore des PCs. En conséquence, personnaliser les contenus IPTV en fonction de l appareil utilisé pour regarder la télévision, en fonction des capacités du réseau et du contexte de l utilisateur représente un défi important. Cette thèse présente des solutions visant à améliorer la personnalisation de services IPTV à partir de trois aspects: 1) Nouvelle identification et authentification pour services IPTV. 2) Nouvelle architecture IPTV intégrée et comportant un système de sensibilité au contexte pour le service de personnalisation. 3) Nouveau service de recommandation de contenu en fonction des préférences de l utilisateur et aussi des informations contextesInternet Protocol TV (IPTV) delivers television content to users over IP-based network. Different from the traditional TV services, IPTV platforms provide users with large amount of multimedia contents with interactive and personalized services, including the targeted advertisement, on-demand content, personal video recorder, and so on. IPTV is promising since it allows to satisfy users experience and presents advanced entertainment services. On the other hand, the Next Generation Network (NGN) approach in allowing services convergence (through for instance coupling IPTV with the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture or NGN Non-IMS architecture) enhances users experience and allows for more services personalization. Although the rapid advancement in interactive TV technology (including IPTV and NGN technologies), services personalization is still in its infancy, lacking the real distinguish of each user in a unique manner, the consideration of the context of the user (who is this user, what is his preferences, his regional area, location, ..) and his environment (characteristics of the users devices screen types, size, supported resolution, and networks available network types to be used by the user, available bandwidth, .. ) as well as the context of the service itself (content type and description, available format HD/SD , available language, ..) in order to provide the adequate personalized content for each user. This advanced IPTV services allows services providers to promote new services and open new business opportunities and allows network operators to make better utilization of network resources through adapting the delivered content according to the available bandwidth and to better meet the QoE (Quality of Experience) of clients. This thesis focuses on enhanced personalization for IPTV services following a user-centric context-aware approach through providing solutions for: i) Users identification during IPTV service access through a unique and fine-grained manner (different from the identification of the subscription which is the usual current case) based on employing a personal identifier for each user which is a part of the user context information. ii) Context-Aware IPTV service through proposing a context-aware system on top of the IPTV architecture for gathering in a dynamic and real-time manner the different context information related to the user, devices, network and service. The context information is gathered throughout the whole IPTV delivery chain considering the user domain, network provider domain, and service/content provider domain. The proposed context-aware system allows monitoring user s environment (devices and networks status), interpreting user s requirements and making the user s interaction with the TV system dynamic and transparent. iii) Personalized recommendation and selection of IPTV content based on the different context information gathered and the personalization decision taken by the context-aware system (different from the current recommendation approach mainly based on matching content to users preferences) which in turn highly improves the users Quality of Experience (QoE) and enriching the offers of IPTV servicesEVRY-INT (912282302) / SudocSudocFranceF

Study of the Basic Characteristics of an Interactive TV Service

The iTV service was too conceptually nebulous to readily comprehend. It was variously mistaken as referring to a network television service and a digital television service. To avoid further setbacks, it is very important that we clarify the basic characteristics of iTV service for the benefit of the fields of information technology, MIS, broadcasting, commerce and so on. After conducting literature reviews and interviews, we were able to delineate the basic characteristics of iTV service as follows:1. The contents of iTV service; 2.The supply and use process, and components of the iTV service

New Frontiers in Universal Multimedia Access

Universal Multimedia Access (UMA) refers to the ability to access by any user to the desired multimedia content(s) over any type of network with any device from anywhere and anytime. UMA is a key framework for multimedia content delivery service using metadata. This report consists of three parts. The first part of this report analyzes the state-of-the-art technologies in UMA, identifies the key issues and gives what are the new challenges that still remain to be resolved in UMA. The key issues in UMA include the adaptation of multimedia contents to bridge the gap between content creation and consuming, standardized metadata description that facilitates the adaptation (e.g. MPEG-7, MPEG-21 DIA, CC/PP), and UMA system designing considering its target application. The second part introduces our approach towards these challenges; how to jointly adapt multimedia contents including different modalities and balance their presentation in an optimal way. A scheme for adapting audiovisual contents and its metadata (text) to any screen is proposed to provide the best experience in browsing the desired content. The adaptation process is modeled as an optimization problem of the total value of the content provided to the user. The total content value is optimized by jointly controlling the balance between video and metadata presentation, the transformation of the video content, and the amount of the metadata to be presented. Experimental results show that the proposed adaptation scheme enables users to browse audiovisual contents with their metadata optimized to the screen size of their devices. The last part reports some potential UMA applications especially focusing on a universal access application to TV news archives as an example

MPEG-7 Description of Generic Video Objects for Scene Reconstruction

ABSTRACT We present an MPEG-7 compliant description of generic video sequences aiming at their scalable transmission and reconstruction. The proposed method allows efficient and flexible video coding while keeping the advantages of textual descriptions in database applications. Visual objects are described in terms of their shape, color, texture and motion; these features can be extracted automatically and are sufficient in a wide range of applications. To permit partial sequence reconstruction, at least one simple qualitative as well as a quantitative descriptor is provided for each feature. In addition, we propose a structure for the organization of the descriptors into objects and scenes and some possible applications for our method. Experimental results obtained with news and video surveillance sequences validate our method and highlight its main features

Investigation Report on Universal Multimedia Access

Universal Multimedia Access (UMA) refers to the ability to access by any user to the desired multimedia content(s) over any type of network with any device from anywhere and anytime. UMA is a key framework for multimedia content delivery service using metadata. This investigation report analyzes the state-of-the-art technologies in UMA and tries to identify the key issues of UMA. The state-of-the-art in multimedia content adaptation, an overview of the standards that supports the UMA framework, potential privacy problems in UMA systems and some new UMA applications are presented in this report. This report also provides challenges that still remain to be resolved in UMA to make clear the potential key problems in UMA and determine which ones to solve

Delivery of a Certified E-mail Service over the Digital Terrestrial Television Platform

At present, the electronic mail service is probably the most widespread and commonly used asynchronous way of exchanging information among people, thanks to its immediacy and easiness of use. Information delivered through E-mail can be sensitive or confidential: ensuring the sender’s identity and providing privacy has become a vital step in stopping spam, fraud and even more serious crimes. To this aim, public entities have adopted Certified E-mail systems to manage secure interactions with citizens. Digital Terrestrial Television introduced new facilities in the traditional broadcasting environment, and determined the transition of several Electronic based-services to Television basedservices. The availability of commercial Set Top Boxes equipped with network interfaces and smart card readers enables the provisioning of personalized interactive TV services, requiring user’s identification and authentication, that still represent open issues in the TV context. In this paper we discuss the challenges of a Certified E-mail service over Digital Terrestrial Television, and present the case study of the Italian Regione Marche, in which this service is under development to support the remote request of certificates issued by the public administration. In particular, our attention is devoted to user authentication and secure access to the administrative services, addressed through the use of a Regional Service Card, an interactive application, and a centralized authentication framework