An architecture of automating production of cross media content for multi-channel distribution

An Architecture of Automating Production of

Cross Media Content for Multi-channel Distribution

Pierfrancesco Bellini, Paolo Nesi DISIT-DSI, Distributed Systems and Internet Technology Lab

Dipartimento di Sistemi e Informatica, Università degli Studi di Firenze Via S. Marta, 3, 50139 Firenze, Italy

[email protected], [email protected]

http://www.disit.dsi.unifi.it/, http://www.dsi.unifi.it/~nesi, http://www.dsi.unifi.it/ Office: +39-055-4796523, Fax: +39-055-4796363

AbstractThe digital-content market is urging better pricing

and value-for-money for industry products and services. This is clearly evident in the recent price policies of majors. Production costs must be drastically reduced without affecting product quality. Content providers, aggregators and distributors constantly need to adopt innovative means of increasing efficiency in order to reduce cost. Possible solutions to this challenge could be found by automating, accelerating and restructuring production processes. AXMEDIS architecture and tools aim at reaching those results by: (i) reducing costs for content production with artificial intelligence algorithms for content composition, formatting, protection and workflow management, (ii) reducing distribution and integration costs, increasing accessibility, with a P2P platform at B2B level integrating content management systems and workflows, (iii) providing algorithms and tools for innovative and flexible Digital Rights Management, exploiting MPEG-21 and overcoming its limits, supporting several business and transactions models. AXMEDIS is a large IST FP6 Integrated Project on Research and Development.

1. Introduction

The digital-content market is urging better pricing

and value-for-money for industry products and

services. This is clearly evident in the recent price

reductions by major companies in the sector. The

containment of sale prices is a vital key when setting

up a viable and sustainable business venture in the e-

content domain. Production costs must be drastically

reduced without affecting product quality. Content

providers, aggregators and distributors constantly need

to adopt innovative means of increasing efficiency in

order to reduce cost. Possible solutions to this

challenge could be found by automating, accelerating

and restructuring production processes. Such solutions

will enable the production processes to be faster and

cheaper, while at the same time providing new

capabilities to support safer distribution.

The state of the art of content distribution,

modelling, composition, formatting, protection and

management is grounded on the content formats.

Presently, there is a large number of content formats

that ranges from the simple files: documents, video,

images, audio, multimedia, etc., to integrated content

models such MPEG-21 [1] and WEDELMUSIC [2]

(proposed in the past by some the authors of this paper

and obtained as a result from a large IST European

Commission R&D project), SCORM, etc. These

models attempt to wrap any digital resource in a

container to make them ready for delivering by using a

large range of business and transaction models and

supporting them with some DRM (Digital Rights

Management) model (only for MPEG-21 and

WEDELMUSIC). More specifically, MPEG-21 is

mainly focused on the standardization of the DRM

aspects while WEDELMUSIC was mainly focused on

Multimedia Music and provided limited DRM

flexibility with an effective implementation of tools for

digital item collection and distribution. The latter,

SCORM, is mainly focussed on packaging collections

of digital content/resources/files for educational

purpose.

Proceedings of the First International Conference on Automated Production of Cross Media Content for Multi-Channel Distribution (AXMEDIS’05) 0-7695-2348-X/05 $20.00 © 2005 IEEE

Authorized licensed use limited to: IEEE Xplore. Downloaded on November 26, 2008 at 09:34 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4001332_Multimedia_music_distribution_and_sharing_among_mediateques_archives_and_their_attendees?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-9d44f2cf-1d4f-4a0e-8fbf-ae02a6ca061a&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzQyMjEyNjY7QVM6OTg2OTIzMDQ0NzQxMjJAMTQwMDU0MTQ4NzU1OQ==

The standardization process of MPEG-21 is still

under completion; presently some parts are mature

while others are under evolution. For MPEG-21,

relevant mature parts are related to DRM such as REL

(Rights Expression Language) and RDD (Right Data

Dictionary) of MPEG-21 [5]. The authors have also

worked on DRM aspects in WEDELMUSIC [2] and

recently also for REL-RDD MPEG-21 as in [3] and on

M3W of MPEG-21.

Despite to the relevance of the standard, little has

been done by the collectivity about the modelling of

authoring tools for the production of MPEG-21 digital

objects [4]. The mechanism of MPEG standardization

process is only focused on the model format and client

tools. This means that the architecture for content

production, protection and distribution, the single

architecture of tools, the business models, the

transactions models, etc., are not normative parts.

The implementation of tools for covering the whole

value chain supporting valuable standards for DRM,

content production, etc., is a very complex task. Even

the single implementation of a simple MPEG-21

authoring tool is a very complex task since it presents

several critical points at the architectural level related

to the protection aspects and to the evolution of the

data format along its life cycle, from digitisation,

production, integration, synchronization, formatting,

adaptation, integration in the same objects protected

and non protected components, definition of

relationships with other resources, metadata

integration, protection, license production and

verification, distribution along different channels such

as: satellite data broadcast, Internet, cellular network,

wireless, traditional supports as DVDs, DCs, etc. To

this end, the whole production process has to be based

on an unified object model that has to be capable of

supporting all the above activities without losing the

protection/security level and giving to the content

owners to trace and verify what is performed on their

content, when and how (at least).

This paper reports AXMEDIS architecture and

framework design that is going to address a large part

of the above mentioned problems and critical points.

AXMEDIS framework is capable of supporting data

gathering from accessible Content Management

Systems, to transform legacy digital content in

AXMEDIS objects, and from these to apply the above

mentioned functionalities preserving security level

along the whole value chain and thus creating a perfect

environment for content production, protection and

distribution at both B2B and B2C levels. AXMEDIS

solution is mainly based on MPEG-21 model and

specializes its format; it provides a P2P tool for content

sharing and distribution at B2B level, and it is capable

to work with a multichannel architecture for B2C

distribution for the production of content on demand.

AXMEDIS is a large Integrated Project of Research

and Development partially founded by the European

Commission in IST FP6 and includes about 20 partners

among them: University of Florence, OD2, HP,

COMVERSE, EPFL, FHGIGD, ACIT, AFI, TISCALI,

University Pompeo Fabra, University of Leeds, CPR,

EXITECH, XIM, University of Reading, etc. More

technical information and about how to make

registration and affiliation to AXMEDIS can be

recovered on www.axmedis.org

The paper is organized as follows. In section 2, the

main objectives and goals of AXMEDIS are reported.

Section 3 refers to the AXMEDIS General

Architecture putting in evidence the most important

components. . In Section 4, the structure and the

services offered by the AXMEDIS Framework are

reported. Conclusions are drawn in Section 5.

2. AXMEDIS Objectives and Goals AXMEDIS architecture and tools aim to meet the

challenges of market demand by:

(i) reducing costs increasing efficiency for content

production, protection, management and

distribution;

(ii) supporting the whole value chain: digitisation,

production, composition, integration,

aggregation, synchronization, formatting,

adaptation, indexing, integration in the same

objects protected and non protected components,

definition of relationships with other resources,

metadata integration, protection, license

production and verification, distribution along

different channels such as: satellite data

broadcast, Internet, cellular network, wireless,

traditional supports as DVDs, DCs, etc.;

(iii) enforcing protection model in the whole value

chain;

(iv) supporting different business and transaction

models;

(v) Supporting the packaging of any other formats;

(vi) developing and providing new methods and tools

for innovative and flexible Digital Rights

Management (DRM), including the exploitation

of MPEG-21 and overcoming its limitations;

(vii) Supporting different distribution channels (such

as the Internet, mobiles, PDA, PC, i-TV, satellite,

etc.) including P2P in both B2B and B2C levels;

(viii) integrating Content Management Systems, CMSs,

with the distribution system by automating the

communication of content and information

between the two systems;




(ix) increasing accessibility with a Peer-to-Peer (P2P)

platform at Business-to-Business (B2B) level,

which can integrate content management systems

and workflows;

(x) managing the workflow for the production and

distribution of digital contents at level of the

content factory and among different content

factories sharing the same content production

objectives;

(xi) automating the whole process to allow content

production on demand.

The AXMEDIS digital content and content

components (in the following, AXMEDIS content in

general) have a specific format capable of integration

inside any kind of cross media format (video, images,

animations, document, audio, etc.), adding metadata,

identification, classification, categorization, indexing,

descriptors, annotation, relationships and play

activities and protection aspects. The AXMEDIS

format permits the combination of content

components, their secure distribution, etc., in the

respect of the copyright laws, supporting a large

variety of DRM rules and models according to

concepts of interoperability among DRM models

(mainly, but not only, based on MPEG-21, with both

binary and XML low level formats).

Within the AXMEDIS content any type of cross

media content can be included from simple multimedia

files to games, software components, for leisure and

entertainment, infotainment, etc.

The General Architecture of AXMEDIS is represented

in Figure 1 which highlights both:

production of AXMEDIS objects and content

components in connection with the AXMEDIS

P2P tool (AXEPTool) for B2B distribution that

support DRM with a certification authority

(AXMEDIS Certifier and Supervisor). This can be

connected to the Collection Societies as well as to

each Content Providers and Distributors providing

reporting and statistics;

distribution of AXMEDIS objects towards clients

via specific distributors that realize the last level

of the distribution chain. This last level can also

support a B2B transaction if the distribution is

targeted at institutions. Also at this level the

sharing via mechanisms of P2P is allowed and

stimulated. This will not invalidate the protection

model of AXMEDIS. Distributors connected to

the AXEPTool may access to a large collection of

AXMEDIS objects coming from providers,

integrators, publishers, etc.

The distribution channel may present a single

distribution path for each type of content, and often,

multiple proprietary systems of representation for the

same content. The definition of distribution channel

editorial formats would provide one way, unified and

rock-solid content format for multipurpose

applications. Alternative solutions support the

multichannel distribution by using an XML model of

content into the Content management systems of the

content provider that also include multiple transcoding

engines for transforming the XML model of content

into the format suitable for the channel.

Content Integrator

AXMEDIS

Portal

Distributor

Distributor

Content Provider

Distributor

AXMEDIS Certifier

& Supervisor

Collecting Society

Content Provider

Content Provider

Fig.1 -- AXMEDIS Architecture, mainly B2B side, This figure is © of AXMEDIS reproduction has been authorized

AXMEDIS

P2P TOOL

(AXEPTool)

B2B Mainly B2C

Content Integrator



This approach is not flexible enough since the

transcoding of content at the source strictly limits the

management of Digital Rights. In fact, in many models

and solutions the protection and the DRM can be

applied only to the content in its final version. This

creates key problems for the content providers since

the content distributors are entitled to receive

unprotected content. This is almost unacceptable in

most cases.

In AXMEDIS, the channel distributors can continue to

use the same mechanisms for reaching the final users.

In AXMEDIS, the content is distributed at B2B level

by using the P2P tool, namely AXEPTool.

Each AXMEDIS object may contain a single or a

collection digital resources to be delivered or shared,

such as MPEG-4, MPEG formats, PDF, HTML, SVG,

images, documents, videos, audio file, etc., (any

standard format for continuation, without the use of

proprietary technologies).

This content can be adapted by using AXMEDIS

compliant tools to reach some specific editorial

formats and to satisfy the needs of the final user device

and channel. The possible Channel Distributors have a

large variety of capabilities, they are both of pull and

push, and may include off-line and on-line connection

from the client to the distributor. The AXMEDIS

consortium has already performed a plat to build

demonstrators for difference distributions channel:

namely, satellite data broadcast for B2B and B2C and

i-TV, Internet to reach Personal Computers, cellular

network to reach mobiles, and local distribution Kiosks

to reach PDAs and mobiles).

AXMEDIS

Portal

Fig.2 -- AXMEDIS Architecture, mainly B2C This figure is © of AXMEDIS reproduction has been authorized

AXMEDIS

P2P TOOL

(AXEPTool)

PCs

PDAs

OpenSky Data Broadcast

AXMEDIS Certifier &

Supervisor Server Clients

KiosksKiosks

i-TVs

Channel Distributors

PC- Distributors

PDA- Distributors

Mobile-DistributorsMobiles

Satellite Data Broadcast

Physic. Sup.

Content Integrators

Content Providers



The model includes P2P in both B2B and B2C levels.

Channel Distributors are involved in:

Getting AXMEDIS content and components from

the Content Providers and using them for

distributing content via their channels for

redistribution for both B2B and B2C transactions.

Collecting AXMEDIS contents in a local database

for preparing the production content Programme

that is the agenda/menu proposed to the customers

and final users.

Using AXMEDIS content for creating attractive

content for their customers. For this reason, they

need to have the possibility of inspecting content

in their internal LAN on a client PC.

Receiving and satisfying requests from their

customers for delivering to them the proposed

content

Receiving and satisfying queries performed by

their customers that are looking for specific

content. This activity is one of the most interesting

added value of AXMEDIS architecture.

Getting updated information about the possible

content that can be recovered from all Content

Providers. This activity is performed via a service

of the AXMEDIS portal. The updating of the

database of the available content is performed in

push via satellite data broadcast with specific

policies.

Accessing statistics produced by the AXMEDIS

Certifier and Supervisor about the content usage.

The Satellite Data Broadcast is a content distribution

mechanism that permits the distribution of the

AXMEDIS content in a very efficient manner. This

improves the quality of service of the data delivery

process (dependent on broadband availability in client

location), and Distributors and also PC users can also

rely on Satellite Broadcast. This technology, provided

by EUTELSAT’s Opensky platform, allows large

quantities of data to be pushed via satellite directly on

the user’s PC without congesting local networks. The

use of this technology is completely transparent with

regard to the AXMEDIS process and only acts as a

cost effective and efficient transport mechanism. This

platform is suitable for distributing AXMEDIS content

and components, an excellent opportunity for content

providers for new business and for accelerating the

distribution decreasing their costs.

The satellite distribution channel can be used for

several activities of content distribution for both B2B

and B2C business models. The push of content is

useful for:

updating AXMEDIS content, software tools and

components in the databases and devices of the

Distributors, final uses, Providers and of

AXMEDIS Kiosks. To all that are connected with

the AXEPTool to an AXMEDIS network;

updating the general indexing databases of the

Distributors with updated information regarding

the available AXMEDIS content and components

of the Providers;

delivering AXMEDIS content on demand directly

to the consumers connected to the satellite i-TV

according to their interactive requests;

delivering AXMEDIS content to the consumers

connected to the satellite i-TV-PC according to

their selection performed from the programmed

content of the day and week;

promoting Content Providers’ content;

promoting Distributors’ services, for example

stimulating the acquisition of content in push with

a business model based on subscription or pay per

view;

creating specific B2B channel with large

institutions and consumers.

Each and every actor in the production and distribution

chain (value chain) of digital contents can benefit from

taking part in the management and sharing of contents

through the AXMEDIS and its tools.

To search for integrate objects and components

through a query support system using technical

parameters such as costs, licence type, file type,

duration, format, watermark, fingerprint,

language, the level of protection provided, content

information, classical metadata, etc. Research can

be integrated within the following areas:

o Legacy or current Content Management

Systems;

o AXMEDIS databases of complex objects or

components;

o Any AXMEDIS database connected via the

AXEPTool to the AXMEDIS network;

To manage and monitor distribution through

o Formal models of contracts in terms of

Digital Rights Management (DRM), using

MPEG-21 or some other possible

AXMEDIS evolution; content exploitation

reporting in an integrated way, always

consistent with the client models;

o Digital material protection through DRM

models and their integrative capability (for

instance: MPEG-21, ODRL, etc.), using

techniques such as encryption,



fingerprinting, dynamic protection models,

super-distributions, etc.;

o Continuous tracing of any operation or

event performed on contents (for example:

printing, copies, play, etc.), regardless of the

distribution model used, and yet integrated

within it, based on markers and control

engines, to understand better how such

AXMEDIS contents are being used by

others business partners or final users;

o registration and certification of distribution

and fruition tools, monitoring the access to

the contents, integrated within almost all

distribution models.

The AXMEDIS technologies and results achieved by

producing and integrating research results, algorithms

and tools for content production, protection and

distribution will be accessible for the adoption by

companies and SMEs. The AXMEDIS platform will

be available soon for industrial groups and research

institutions. AXMEDIS technologies will be easily

accessible offering a higher level of integrative

capability with other industrial and standard allowing

their exploitation in different production and

distribution chains.

3. AXMEDIS General Architecture In Figure 3, a more detailed version of AXMEDIS

architecture is reported. The diagram includes all the

major areas of the AXMEDIS framework. The

following description for each major component is

mainly related to the flow of the content from its

acquisition to distribution. They are:

AXMEDIS Factory:

Local CMSs – a set of CMSs which are of interest

to be connected to AXMEDIS content factory.

They may contain digital content, resources, files,

metadata, administrative and licensing

information, etc., and can be physically located in

several different computer systems and based on

several different database models: ODBC, XML,

ORCALE, MSSQL, etc., or files systems. The

access to this information is performed by means

of Crawling Area tools;

Crawling Area includes content Crawlers (such

as Focuseek), and content Collector Engines, etc.

They are based on a set of drivers and plug-ins to

access at data of any proprietary CMS and from

them to migrate the collected digital resources

towards AXMEDIS database and content factory;

This process is performed by means of active

queries and a script language and engine to

automate the connection of CMSs with the

AXMEDIS factory and to make it fast and

effective. This process is partially managed by

AXMEDIS Content Processing Engine;

AXMEDIS Database Area – includes the

database model, supporting the storage and access

to AXMEDIS content via large set of metadata for

each object called AXInfo. The database also

includes produced licenses for the objects, history

of performed actions on content, potentially

available rights for each digital resource, models

of contracts, etc. The AXInfo include Dublin core

plus descriptors and many other metadata for

managing protection, lifecycle, etc. Any additional

descriptors and metadata can be added in a

flexible manner. Thus, different AXMEDIS

factories may be based on different AXInfo and

metadata, while automatic adapters can be defined

and activated. The database area is based on a

scalable database, a powerful AXMEDIS

Database manager, and an effective AXMEDIS

Query Support endowed of an easy to use user

interface. The User may perform queries to search

for objects and content located in the CMSs, in the

local AXMEDIS database and in the virtual

database comprised of the AXMEDIS content

accessible/published via the P2P network of

AXEPTools in the AXMEDIS B2B Network;

AXMEDIS Content Processing is performed by

means of a set of tools and algorithms for the

automatic content production/processing. This

area is mainly dominated by the AXMEDIS

Content Processing Engine and Scheduler that

are a GRID based tools. It implements a scalable

solution to process from smaller collections to

huge amount of content per day. The processing

algorithms may be specified in terms of script

code (Spider Monkey) allowing the manipulation

of complex AXMEDIS data types and simple

digital resources and content in general, and for

the direct access to the AXMEDIS database and

processing queries with the help of the AXMEDIS

Query Support. The available data types, operators

and accessible algorithms allow manipulation of

any digital resources in a large number of formats

from images (more than 150 different formats),

audio (more than 60 formats), video (more than 50

formats), documents (TXT, PS, HTML, PDF,

DOC, etc.), multimedia (more than 30

formats)MPEG-4, HTML, LOM, etc.), etc.

Algorithms can be defined for massive content

composition (packaging, combination, etc.) and



content layout formatting (synchronisation, image

and screen layout, from image sequence to video,

etc.), content adaptation (change in resolution,

subsampling, change in format, etc.), transcoding,

coding, decoding, fingerprint extraction,

estimation of descriptors, license adaptation and

transcoding, license production and verification,

etc.; The solution allow the writing of any kind of

content processing algorithms, and these can be

put in execution on a scalable GRID for massive

production and processing of digital resources in

respect of the DRM;

o Fingerprint/Descriptors Extractors – a set

of algorithms and tools capable of estimating

fingerprints (for collection of metadata and

for resource certification) of a large variety of

possible resource/content; a set of algorithms

and tools to estimate descriptors, such as high

level features of content, such as the rhythm

for audio, the topics for text, etc. Such

algorithms are designed as a set of plug-ins

usable in different AXMEDIS tools. The can

be used when the content is acquired for

estimating technical metadata such as

duration, size, rhythm, genre, etc., according

to the different type of digital resource they

are processing. Descriptors are typically

coded in MPEG-7;

o Digital Processing Algorithms – any

algorithms of content processing can be

included in the framework to be exploited by

the AXMEDIS tools by making it compliant

with AXMEDIS Plug in Interface. In effect,

algorithms for the extraction of fingerprint,

descriptors, adaptation, content processing,

DRM adaptation, metadata adaptation, are

built as pluggable algorithms;

o Protection Tools -- algorithms and tools for

producing licenses, verification of license

according to DRM, encryption and decryption

support, and a support to provide a secure

communication towards clients and

AXMEDIS Certifier and Supervisor, etc. The

same Protection tools are exploited by the

Content Processing tools for the automatic

protection of objects and accessible from

AXMEDIS Editor for the protection of single

objects according to the user needs and aims;

AXMEDIS Editor is the authoring tool for

AXMEDIS objects. It is based on the AXMEDIS

Object Model, called AXOM and based on

MPEG-21, and all the modules and tools to

manipulate and create AXMEDIS objects and

related information and digital resources such as:

(i) a resource hierarchy viewer and editor, (ii) a

visual and behavioural viewer and editor to

show/manipulate visual and time aspects of related

digital resources according to SMIL, (iii) a DRM

viewer and editor to cope with licensing aspects,

(iv) a protection information tools to specify,

apply and browse protection aspects, (v) a set of

plug-ins to use algorithms for content processing

as those mentioned and used in the content

processing area, (vi) a set of plug-ins to allow the

integration of AXMEDIS Editor within other

editing and viewing applications, (vii) an interface

with workflow (OpenFlow and BizTalk), (viii) a

set of internal viewers and players for digital

resources such as document, images, video,

MPEG-4, and audio resources, etc., for more than

200 different file formats;

Programme and Publication includes a set of

tools which allow interconnecting AXMEDIS

Network and Databases to the distribution

channels for producing programs to public content

on the distribution channel, and to transfer the

related to content on the channel. It also allows the

management of requests for content

production/adaptation on demand. The production

of content programs is capable of scheduling the

production/adaptation of content depending on the

distribution profile, production time costs and on

delivering time. These tools also provide a front

end in terms of web services to delivering content

ready for the distribution;

Workflow Management tools includes a set of

micro tools and interfaces which are pervasively

connected to all the above mentioned tools and

plug-ins to allow interfacing the whole AXMEDIS

factory to Workflow tools such as Open Flow and

Biztalk. The control is performed to define

AXMEDIS factory workflow policies and to

manage inter-factory workflows policies;

AXMEDIS Accounting Area includes a set of

tools which allow content producers, distributors

or collecting societies to collect administrative

information and report about their content in order

to gathering information about what has been

performed on their AXMEDIS objects. This

information is collected into the AXMEDIS

database for collection and further analysis. The

local database and the AXCS provide support to

make queries to obtaining statistics data on

content usage in the area, in the channel, for a type

of content, for a period, etc. A specific tool allow

extracting data from the AXMEDIS Database to



migrate them towards the administrative side of

the CMS, such as high level administrative

information to prepare the bill at the content users,

distributors, etc., to interface customer

relationships services;

AXEPTool Area:

AXMEDIS network that allows the content

sharing and distribution among different

connected AXMEDIS factories of producers,

integrators, distributors, publishers, etc.;

AXEPTool is the main component and allows to

connect in a safer manner AXMEDIS Factories

allowing the interchange of content and to

establish trading mechanism and business among

them with the support of a P2P tools for content

sharing and publication. AXMEDIS content can

be published on AXEPTool to be automatically

and immediately accessible to all AXMEDIS

compliant partners for business. The Potentially

Available Rights and the contact information are

the instruments to start the negotiation of content

acquisition. This mechanism makes the B2B

content distribution fasters, simpler and more

secure. Each transaction and trial is monitored by

the AXEPTool and by the AXMEDIS Certifier

and Supervisor. During queries, the content and

the technical metadata are certified thus avoiding

trivial problems of many P2P architectures;

AMXEDIS Players:

AXMEDIS Client Players – they are mainly

reduced versions of the above mentioned

AXMEDIS Editor. They are mainly capable of

reading and playing/executing AXMEDIS objects

according to the DRM models chosen. AXMEDIS

framework provides tool kits and libraries to

create a large number of different players on

different platforms, leaving the customisation of

the user interface, skin, and much more; mainly

MS-Windows, MAC and Linux, for PC, PDA and

may be for mobiles;

AXMEDIS Other Players – they are plug-in

versions of the AXMEDIS Client Players. These

tools allow AXMEDIS objects visualization and

playing in other tools such as Internet Explorer,

Mozilla Browser, etc.;

Distribution Area: Distribution tools (any third party) to distribute

content on their distribution channels, and a set of

AXMEDIS tools to support them;

Channels supported are mainly those that have

been presented above but are not limited to them:

satellite data broadcast, Internet, cellular networks,

wireless from kiosks, etc., to reach devices such

as: i-TV STB, PC, PDA, mobiles, etc.;

AXMEDIS Factory included in the distributor. In

this case, AXMEDIS technology may support the

distributors providing tools for content search and

recovering from the AXEPTool network,

adapting, packaging, protecting if needed, and

formatting the content with the AXMEDIS

Content Processing tools, supporting queries from

the clients and providing tools for the production

of content on demand, tools for reporting the

activities performed by end users, etc.;

Customized players created on the basis of the

AXMEDIS framework tools and kits in the respect

of the DRM and protection mechanisms, starting

from the above mentioned AXMEDIS players;

AXMEDIA Peer is a P2P tools for distributing

and sharing AXMEDIS content among end users,

modelling a B2C2C model, in which the

distributor insert AXMEDIS content and this may

freely navigate in the P2P with the control of

AMEDIS protection and monitoring models;

AXMEDIS Protection and Supervision

Tools:

AXMEDIS Certifier and Supervisor, AXCS –

The AXCS is the responsible of user registration

and authentication, of software certification, and

of the registration and tracking of the activities

performed on AXMEDIS objects on any

AXMEDIS compliant tool. The AXCSs provide

protection information and share with the

Protection Manager Supports (PMS) the

responsibility of managing the protection for

distribution channels and domains;

Protection Manager Support, PMS – The PMS

has the duty of the verification licenses and of the

communication from the AXMEDIS clients and

tools that manipulate objects and the AXCS. It

allows the management of licenses and the sharing

of these along other PMSs supporting different

distribution channels or domains. The combination

of AXCS and PMS, exploitation and integration

with the distribution tools allow the set up of a

large variety of different business, distribution and

transactions models, from client server to P2P,

from satellite data broadcast toward i-TV to

content distribution to cellular phones;

AXMEDIS Portal includes services for

AXMEDIS participants and users of the



AXMEDIS framework. It supports the deployment

of the AXMEDIS framework and allows

providing updated tools and information to core

AMXEDIS partners and all affiliated companies.

On AXMEDIS portal, you can get the list of

AXMEDIS compliant tools, devices, registered

companies, test cases, documentation, libraries,

etc.;

AXMEDIS OID Generator is the responsible for

the generation of unique identification codes for

AXMEDIS objects. It is accessible by all tools

capable of creating new AMXEDIS objects for

any AXMEDIS Factory and it is a WEB service

directly connected to the AXMEDIS Certifier and

Supervisor;

Super AXCS – is a higher level version of the

AXCSs. The Super AXCS is responsible for

supervising and collecting general information of

monitoring for the actions performed on the

content and for the registration of tools, users, etc.,

of the other AXCS and PMSs. Different

topologies of AXCSs and PMSs can be arranged

by using the same tools.

4. AXMEDIS Framework In Figure 4, the structure of the AXMEDIS

Framework is reported. It contains all the

necessary tools to manage the content workflow

from the content production to the distribution

over different channels.

AXMEDIS

Network

AXEPTools

AXEPTools

AXEPToo

AXMEDIS

Certifier and

Supervisor

Protection

Manager

Support

CMS

CrawlerAXMEDIS

database

Area

AXMEDIS

databases

AXMEDIS

Accounting

AXMEDIS Editors

Distributor

AXMEDIS Factory

AXEPTool

Programme and

Publication

Distributor

Workflow

Management

AXMEDIS Content

Processing Engines and

Scheduler GRIDs

Protection and Supervision tools

AXEPTool

Distributor

AXMEDIS

Factory

AXMEDIS Players

AXMEDIS

Portal

Fig.3 -- AXMEDIS General Architecture This figure is © of AXMEDIS reproduction has been authorized



The general infrastructure gives a common

ground on the base of which other AXMEDIS-

compliant applications can be built. The most

relevant parts of the AXMEDIS Framework

which will be accessible are:

AXMEDIS Object Model, AXOM, a

common model for content representation

which allows that the information about the

content can be exchanged between the

different tools for the manipulation/fruition,

AXMEDIS is a flexible specialization of

MPEG-21 format;

Database model and tools to access at the

AXMEDIS data base and to make queries and

search algorithms. The access is performed by

beans of WEB service;

Additional information: test cases, uses

cases, requirements, content for validations,

general documentation of AXMEDIS tools

and supports, CVS tree for sources, guidelines

for source code production, guidelines on

content production and distribution, tutorials

on content protection, tutorial on AXMEDIS

tools, etc.;

P2P protocols for creating GRIDs and P2P

tools such as the AXMEDIS Content

Processing Engine and Scheduler, the

AXEPTools, and the AXMEDIA peers;

Algorithms for compositions and formatting,

for transcoding and adaptation, for extraction

of fingerprint and descriptors, content

processing, license manipulation and

verification, license adaptation, etc., for many

different formats of digital resources and for

any categories of them: audio, video,

document, multimedia, images, animations,

text, metadata, etc. These can be attached to

other tools by means of the AXMEDIS Plug-

in Manager and Model.

Integration with proprietary CMSs by

means of Crawler and Accounting Manager

tools to bring back the administrative

information;

Protection tools: DRM/Protection solutions,

DRM engines, guidelines for licensing and

contract definition, protection tools,

monitoring tools, secure communication

protocol;

AXMEDIS Players to the production of

customized players on the basis of specific

Any Proprietary CMS, and Content as files Any Workflow

AXMEDIS

database &

administrative

Tools

AXMEDIS

database

AXMEDIS

Content

Processing

Tools

AXMEDIS

Editing and

Viewing

Tools

P2P AXEPTool

and Programme

and Publication

tools

AXMEDIS Certifier

& Supervisor,

Protection Manager

Supports

Database

and query

support

P2P protocols

Composition and

Formatting algorithms

AXMEDIS

Object Model

Query & results

model

Query search

algorithms DRM and protection algorithms

Securecommunic.

protocol

Transcoding and

Adaptation algorithms

Test Cases

Content for

validation Fingerprint and Descriptor

extractors

Crawling

integration

Workflow

interfacesAXMEDIS general infrastructure

GRID and script execution support

Documentation

and support

Fig.4 -- AXMEDIS Framework This figure is © of AXMEDIS reproduction has been authorized



needs and the above support tools;

AXMEDIS Content Processing tools:

engine for executing Spider Monkey script

accessing to all the above mentioned supports

and datatypes;

5. Conclusions Content providers, aggregators and distributors

constantly need to adopt innovative means of

increasing efficiency in order to reduce cost.

AXMEDIS architecture and tool is a possible solutions

to automating, accelerating and restructuring

production process. This paper reported AXMEDIS

architecture and framework design that is going to

address a large part of the above mentioned problems

and critical points. AXMEDIS framework is capable of

supporting data gathering from accessible Content

Management Systems, to transform legacy digital

content in AXMEDIS objects, and process them in the

production, preserving security level along the whole

value chain and thus creating a perfect environment for

content production, protection and distribution at both

B2B and B2C levels. AXMEDIS solution is mainly

based on MPEG-21 model and provides and stimulates

the usage and the exploitation of the developed

features for creating many AXMEDIS compliant tools

and solutions making the core aspects and solution

accessible in the form of AXMEDIS Framework. More

technical information and about how to make

registration and affiliation to AXMEDIS can be

recovered on www.axmedis.org

6. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thanks to all AXMEDIS

project partners including the Expert User Group and

all affiliated members, for their contributions, funding

and collaborations. A specific acknowledgment to EC

IST FP6 for partial funding of AXMEDIS project. A

warm thanks to all AXMEDIS people that have helped

us in starting up the project and sorry if they have not

been involved in the paper and have not been

mentioned. We trust in their understanding.

7. References [1] Leonardo Chiariglione, MPEG Group,

“www.chiariglione.org/mpeg”, standard MPEG-21,

2004.

[2] P. Bellini, J. Barthelemy, I. Bruno, P. Nesi, M. Spinu,

``Multimedia Music Sharing among Mediateques,

Archives and Distribution to their attendees", Journal on

Applied Artificial Intelligence, Special Issues on

Artificial Intelligence for Cultural Heritage and Digital

Libraries, Vol.17, N.8-9, pp.773-796, 2003.

[3] P. Bellini, P. Nesi, D. Rogai, A. Vallotti, “MPEG-21

REL Authorization Algorithm, C implementation, with

RDD support”, Technical Report, DSI-DISIT,

Department of Systems and Informatics, University of

Florence, May 2004.

[4] ENIKOS Digital Item Creator,

http://www.enikos.com/home.shtml

[5] DSI, AXMEDIS Framework Specification, Official

Deliverable of AXMEDIS project: www.axmedis.org.

[6] DSI, Requirements and User Cases, Official Deliverable

of AXMEDIS project: www.axmedis.org









An architecture of automating production of cross media content for multi-channel distribution

Documents

Transcript of An architecture of automating production of cross media content for multi-channel distribution