Building a multi-purposes digital media system using MPEG-21 and XML

Abstract

This study proposes a scheme to integrate several types of media elements into a multimedia framework, which plays media on a same platform without distinct players. This investigation is well-suited for multimedia applications such as the distance learning and digital library. However, the varied media elements put together and played on a same platform are great challenges. This study employs MPEG-21 digital item standard to achieve this target, makes varied multimedia exist on a browser interface, and solves the problem of different players playing different media. Moreover, this study exploits XML and Digital Item Declaration Language (DIDL) functions to construct a Digital Media System (DMS). The DMS puts separate videos, audios, images, and text media sources into a trailer. Users select and play the trailer using webbased interface to achieve on demand playing. Finally, we demonstrate that the proposed system is resilient on multimedia applications and very suitable for distance learning systems. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidolberg 2000.