Innovative directions in self-organized distributed multimedia systems

• Published in: Multimedia tools and applications Vol. 51; no. 2; pp. 525 - 553
• Main Authors: Böszörmenyi, Laszlo, del Fabro, Manfred, Kogler, Marian, Lux, Mathias, Marques, Oge, Sobe, Anita
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 2011; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analysis; Architecture; Cameras; Collection; Communities; Computer Communication Networks; Computer Science; Consumption; Data Structures and Information Theory; Distributed processing; Metadata; Multimedia; Multimedia computer applications; Multimedia Information Systems; Networks; Quality of service; Semantics; Sensors; Social networks; Social research; Special Purpose and Application-Based Systems; Streaming media; Streams; Studies; User experience; Users; Video recorders; Zipf's Law; Video delivery; User experience; Video streaming; Self-organized multimedia applications; Distributed multimedia systems; Social multimedia systems
• ISSN: 1380-7501; 1573-7721
• DOI: 10.1007/s11042-010-0622-z

The way by which multimedia contents are produced, delivered across networks, and consumed by intended users have shifted significantly during the past 10 years. In this paper we postulate that, in the near future, flexible and self-organizing facilities will play a dominating role in distributed multimedia systems. We discuss how such systems can be designed, using a three-layer (sensor, distribution, and user layer) architecture, SOMA (Self Organizing Multimedia Architecture), as an example. We also present innovative directions in three main aspects of self-organized multimedia systems: (i) the self-organizing aspects of multimedia user communities, e.g., the wisdom, intentions, and needs of users; (ii) a fresh look at video streams that treat them as a collection of units that can be composed taking user and network aspects into account; and (iii) new delivery paradigms and how self-organization and multimedia delivery can be combined.