Publishable Results (M25-36)

After the first 36 months of activity is possible to see the AXMEDIS framework completed and many demonstrators accessible and functional 24 on 24, 7 days on 7. In fact, from a scientific and technical viewpoint, the consortium has:

• Defined a cross media content model for managing any kind of content model and protecting it with the support of MPEG-21 DRM;

• Collected and formalized detailed requirements, use cases, test cases and scenarios (including their updated versions), regarding automated content production, protection and distribution over multichannel;

• Development of a set of basic enabling technologies in WP4 and WP5 as a results of the research activity such as: cross media model, protection models and tools, workflow integration, GRID language for cross media content processing, database modelling for MPEG-21 and AXMEDIS, license formalisation and DRM interoperability, formatting algorithms based on SMIL descriptors and genetic algorithms, integrated P2P architecture with fast seeding, adaptation and transcoding algorithms and processing tools (for video, audio, documents, and images), multichannel distribution, architecture and tool for AXMEDIS/MPEG-21 editing, architecture and tools for AXMEDIS/MPEG-21 playing with rights enforcement, algorithms and support for protecting complex cross media content, streaming of MPEG-21/AXMEDIS objects, etc.

• Produced the specification of AXMEDIS framework and thus the technical documentation addressing the identified needs and requirements. These documents have been published and include:

  • Specification and technical documentation of AXMEDIS cross media model

  • Specification and technical documentation of AXMEDIS editors and tools, workflow, metadata, etc.

  • Specification and technical documentation of AXMEDIS content processing area with GRID language for media processing, scheduler, fault tolerant architecture, content processing algorithms, adaptation, fingerprint, communication, access to databases, etc.

  • Specification and technical documentation of AXMEDIS P2P network (including AXEPTools, AXMEDIA for P2P clients and related servers),

  • Specification and technical documentation of AXMEDIS database and query support

  • Specification and technical documentation of AXMEDIS protection models and tools, including the domain management aspects

  • Specification and technical documentation of AXMEDIS players and tools for PC, PDA, Mobiles, STB,

  • Specification and technical documentation of Programme and Publication Tools, integration with AXMEDIS content processing, and with Satellite distribution

  • Specification and technical documentation of Demonstrators of the AXMEDIS framework and platform for distribution and other activities,

  • Specification and technical documentation of AXMEDIS database and query support, access to AXMEDIS certifier and supervisor, AXCS, for reporting and statistics

  • Specification and technical documentation of AXMEDIS protection models and tools, PMS client and Server, AXMEDIS Certifier and Supervisor, registration, certification of users, certification authority

  • Specification and technical documentation of AXMEDIS players and tools, usage of OSMO MPEG-4 and SMIL players (PC stand alone based, PC based on Active X, PC based on Mozilla Plug in, PDA based)

  • Specification and technical documentation of AXMEDIS framework and platform Demonstrators

• Improved and management of the User Group, collection of questionnaires and usage of them for improving requirements, specification and tools,

• Identification and usage of metrics and reference parameters to measure work progressed and results achieved in relation to planned work and time schedule,

• Improvement and refinement of AXMEDIS results and related Exploitation plan, also taking into account the new partners,

• Production of the refined version of the exploitation plan

• Dissemination and general demonstration, training:

  • Produced dissemination material (flyer, press cutting, DVD, CD, project presentation, tutorial, video, posters, web pages, etc.) and published them on the web, and distributing them in different occasions, from conferences to fairs and other manifestations,

  • Produced training documentation and material, and organisation and deploy of training courses as tutorial days,

  • Organized the AXMEDIS 2005 conference held in November-December 2005, Florence, Italy,

  • Organized the AXMEDIS 2006 conference held in Leeds, UK, December 2006,

  • Organized the Workshop on Content Production, April, 2007, Rome, Italy,

  • Organized the AXMEDIS 2007 conference to be held in Barcelona, November 2007-,

  • Production and demonstration of several videos for the major AXMEDIS tools, distribution of them via AXMEDIS P2P and on YouTube,

  • Dissemination of results via several conference attendance/organisation, articles submission, development and distribution of supportive dissemination material (CD, DVDs, posters, flyers, etc.)

  • Promotion of the AXMEDIS at IBC2007, with a special WEB page, press promotion, advertising, invitation, production of dissemination material, presentation of major AXMEDIS products,

  • Production of the dissemination report and plan

• AXMEDIS Framework and its demonstration

  • Completed implementation of AXMEDIS Framework,

  • Continuous update of the AXMEDIS Framework tools, documentation and components,

  • Distribution of a several versions of AXMEDIS tools for:

    • content production (manual and automated)

    • content playing, with related AXMEDIS content for demonstration (in AXMEDIS format),

    • content protection and DRM

    • for P2P content distribution and sharing

    • for content managing on databases

  • Set up and maintenance of a stable AXMEDIS P2P network with the major AXMEDIS partners as supernodes of the network, distribution of content on the stable AXMEDIS P2P network

  • Set up and maintenance of AXMEDIS stable services:

    • AXMEDIS User Registration and certification

    • AXMEDIS Tools certification

    • AXMEDIS PMS, for the AXMEDIS DRM

    • AXMEDIS Certifier and Supervisor, for the AXMEDIS DRM

  • Production of a set of documents for promoting the AXMEDIS framework:

    • AXMEDIS for all,

    • user manual of major AXMEDIS tools,

    • user manual of the AXMEDIS content processing GRID java script language,

    • user manual for the P2P network tools,

    • etc.

• Affiliation programme

  • set up of the affiliation programme

  • promotion of the Affiliation programme

  • acceptance and integration of new affiliated partners, providing them access to the AXMEDIS Framework,

• Content production and modelling

  • Produced the documentation and guidelines of content for validation, including content itself for AXMEDIS MPEG-21 validation,

  • Production of content and tools for test and validation, they have been downloaded in many many instances from the AXMEDIS portal,

• Demonstration and AXMEDIS Framework Exploitation

  • Specification and realisation of the demonstrators for multichannel distribution via internet (PC), via kiosks (PC and PDA), towards mobiles and via satellite data broadcast (PC and STB/PVR, media centers),

• Integration of new partners coming from the take ups,

  • Completion of the requirements and of the specification for the AXMEDIS-4HOME demonstrators,

  • Completion of the requirements and of the specification for the AXMEDIS-ELTEO demonstrators,

• WEB portal:

  • Improvement of the performance in download from the AXMEDIS portal

  • Production and improvement of an AXMEDIS Wiki portal for providing promotional documentation about AXMEDIS Framework,

  • Integration of a powerful search engine to provide it to users of the AXMEDIS portal to search into public and/or private documentation,

  • Integration of a BLOG for collecting impressions from the public attracted on the AXMEDIS portal,

Results achieved

The main results achieved in this third year are:

• The completion of the AXMEDIS Framework, its improvement and maintenance, AXMEDIS framework guidelines, source code repository for AXMEDIS framework (several versions collected), source code validation;

• The definition and the implementation of a set of components and tools which permits the implementation of a large set of possible configurations for automated content production, protection and multichannel distribution with and without DRM;

• the definition of a general architecture for multichannel distribution with interoperable terminals and content (including DRM support);

• tools for content composition and formatting, definition of GRID rule formalization, language (and integrated development environment) for content composition and formatting, initial results in terms of composition and formatting algorithms development and application, SMIL profile, SMIL templates, genetic algorithms for style parameters optimizations;

• Definition of AXMEDIS cross media data model and MPEG-21, transformations from protected to non protected objects and vice-versa, AXMEDIS file format proposed at MPEG ISO as MPEG-21 file format as MPEG CMIP MAF;

• AXMEDIS authoring tools including: metadata editor and viewer, hierarchy editor, MPEG-21 editor, SMIL/visual Editor, DRM Editor, protection editor, behavior editor, etc.;

• AXMEDIS player tools including: video player, audio player, SMIL player, DOC viewer, OSMO MPEG4 player, HTML player, metadata viewer, DIP AXMEDIS Script player, etc. They have been enforced into different integrated players for: PC, active X server, Mozilla, STB/PVR, PDA, and mobile (in progress) etc.;

• AXMEDIS player with customizable skins, development of a set of them;

• First integration of MPEG-21 DIP/DIM functionalities into AXMEDIS model, players and editor, mainly for the PC players;

• AXMEDIS content processing tools, based on JavaScript for production and processing content via GRID technology, development of an integrated development environment for producing and testing GRID rules, scheduler for putting in execution jobs/processes on GRID nodes, control of CPU Node usage, control of GRID operation via web service, allocation of job/processes considering: starting time, process needs and profile, GRID node profile, etc.; addition of several functionalities such as: manipulation of additional format, production of emails and SMS, management of protected content, integration of DIA processing, etc.

• AXMEDIS protection processor for AXMEDIS tools (editors, players and GRID nodes), supporting IPMP of MPEG-21 and much more;

• Improvement of MPEG-21 IPMP, accepted contribution to ISO;

• AXMEDIS database, and query support, for indexing, query and retrieval of AXMEDIS objects including PAR (potentially available rights);

• content crawler integrated with AXMEDIS Content processing engine to access to many databases and communication channels;

• Integration of MPEG-21 DIA profiling and related taking decision engine for content adaptation mainly for the mobile cases;

• algorithms for estimating and using content fingerprint, performing adaptation and transcoding, exploiting fingerprinting for content recognition and identification;

• Completion of the AXMEDIS P2P architecture and set up, including Query Support, catalogues for content and object tracker, performance analysis of the P2P network;

• Completion of the accounting managing and reporting tool, and statistical reporting and set up;

• AXMEDIS DRM integration and completion including, PMS and Certifier and Supervisor, registration portal, certification authority;

• Better definition of contractual and legal aspects, from contract to license and related mutual processing, verification of licenses;

• Verification of DRM and distribution for mobiles, OMA usage from AXMEDIS content processing; Integration analysis of AXMEDIS DRM with standards and commercial solutions such as OMA;

• Completion of the algorithms for fingerprint and descriptors estimation and for content adaptation;

• Business models for distribution via satellite data broadcast, integration with AXMEDIS content factory EUTELSAT (satellite data broadcast);

• Development of Domain Management with PMS domain, study and improvement of OMA and MPEG-21 Domains;

• Definition of the editorial formats for PC, PDA, Mobiles and STB;

• collection of content for test and validation, integrated version of content, formatting guidelines and styles;

• completion of prototypes of the full end-to-end demonstrators for content production, protection and distribution of TISCALI (PC via client server and P2P);

• completion of prototypes of the full end-to-end demonstrators for content production, protection and distribution of ILABS (mobiles, kiosks and PDA);

• Workflow support (OpenFlow and BizTalk) for interfacing AXMEDIS tools with workflow tools and governing real content production factories;

• Completion of the requirements and specification for the AX4HOME and AXELTEO demonstrators, implementation of early mock up demonstrator for them.

• Set up of AXMEDIS public stable services for

  • AXMEDIS P2P network with the major AXMEDIS partners as supernodes of the network, distribution of content on the stable AXMEDIS P2P network for B2B-P2P and C2C-P2P,

  • AXMEDIS DRM: User Registration and certification, Tools certification, PMS (license server), Certifier and Supervisor;

• Distribution of AXMEDIS tools such as: AXMEDIS Editor, PC players, content processing tools, DRM editor, programme and publication, P2P client tools, PDA player, etc.; They can be tested by using the above mentioned facilities and content included into the packages and the additional AXMEDIS content and Rules that can be downloaded from the portal;

• Production and distribution of technical informative material including: AXMEDIS specification, AXMEDIS technical notes, user manuals, flyers, white papers, slides, etc.;

• Organization of activities of dissemination and demonstration including: AXMEDIS 2006 conference, workshop on content production 2007, IBC 2007, etc.;

• Production and distribution of dissemination material: DVD, CD, reports, documents, reports, examples, videos, flyers, etc. Most of them have distributed/downloades in thousands of copies;

• Improvement of the WEB portal services: more informative content, more easy to get downloads, more hits, more velocity and reliability;

• Realization and deploy of training activities as tutorial days and workshops, and distribution of related training material from the WEB portal and at the events.

Intentions for use and impact: The AXMEDIS results are mainly exploitable for

• organizing and automating the content production and distribution back officer activities, reducing related costs. This result is mainly due to the

  • AXMEDIS Content Processing platform, AXCP GRID, solution, tools and language,

  • Availability of relevant number of functionalities into the AXCP language and solution including: content processing, CMS access, transcoding, coders, encoders, communication capabilities, information processing, etc.;

• enabling the distribution of content on multichannel architectures and introducing cross media models which enforce more interactivity into the content player for the final users. This result is mainly due to the:

  • AXMEDIS cross media model and tools,

  • AXMEDIS players for PC, PDA, STB and mobiles (their customization and reuse in source code for creating other players in other platforms or customized players),

  • AXMEDIS Content Processing platform, AXCP GRID platform, for multichannel content production, adaptation, transcoding, etc.;

• enabling the distribution of content with an open and interoperable DRM. This is mainly due to:

  • the adoption of MPEG-21 and OMA standards,

  • the transcoding of MPEG-21 into OMA and viceversa,

  • usage of the AXMEDIS Content Processing platform, AXCP GRID solution, for the uniform back office management of DRM supported channels. With the AXCP GRID back office, other different DRM models can be easily added,

  • usage of AXMEDIS DRM tools: certification authority, registration portal, PMS (license server), certifier and supervision, etc.

• enabling the distribution of content via P2P setting up B2B, B2C, C2C and B2B2C models. This is mainly due to the AXMEDIS P2P solution based on:

  • AXMEDIS P2P tools and hierarchical architecture derived from BitTorrent with the possibility of its controllability,

  • AXMEDIS Content Processing platform, AXCP GRID platform, to control and P2P architecture, publication, downloading, seeding, monitoring, and getting statistical information and reporting;

• the AXMEDIS Infrastructure and framework per se accessing to

  • advanced State of the Art and standards solutions,

  • knowledge and tools for content production, protection and distribution,

  • tutorials on content: general aspects and state of the art, content production and protection, on distribution tools, on general AXMEDIS aspects, etc.,

  • tools, content, and source code of the related tools,

  • experience about the usage of the AXMEDIS solutions and tools from several industrial partners such as TISCALI, ILABS, HP, TEO, BBC, SIAE, ELION, XIM, TI, AFI, etc.

The project as also foreseen the possibility of “affiliating” new partners in project life due course. Presently we have registered a number of affiliations (SIAE, RIGEL, GESFOR, ALBENIZ, PENTEX, etc.). The rational for this is that there are many reasons to get affiliated to AXMEDIS, which can be summarized as follow:

• Obtaining access to an open platform that can be customized for your production, protection and distribution needs, related training and technical material and documentation;

• Reduction of costs for content gathering, processing, production, protection and distribution;

• Saving money in accessing at innovative technologies for content production and distribution, integrated environment;

• Accessing to strongly innovative technology to trial it;

• Adopting a standard model (MPEG-21) for content and licenses modeling and thus for inserting DRM in your business;

• Exploiting and trial of new business models;

• Setting up of one-stop service for content protection and DRM set up;

• Acquiring a larger control about content usage;

• Allowing reporting to your business customers which rights are exploited on their content;

• Allowing the management of rights reporting for multimedia products;

• Creating customized players;

• Exploiting capabilities of secure legal P2P distribution;

• Setting up and create a customized distribution channel interoperable with others;

• Setting up some new service (empowering your present solution) on the basis of AXMEDIS technology;

• Establishing contacts with other business partners interested in exploiting similar technology;

• Allowing using a solution that can be safer and more flexible with respect to state of the art;

• Promoting your AXMEDIS based solutions to the AXMEDIS community and the general public and global sector industry via the AXMEDIS dissemination and promotion channels;

• Promoting your AXMEDIS based solutions at AXMEDIS conferences and workshops;

• Contributing to the AXMEDIS Framework is allowing you to continuing accessing to the framework reducing the costs for its accessibility.

For such reasons research institutions and technology providers are interested in getting affiliated with AXMEDIS, in more detail, once affiliated it will be possible for them to:

• access at low cost a the whole AXMEDIS framework by means of which several different configurations and solutions may be built to cover the needs of the value chain actors and tested with low effort;

• access at tools based on MPEG-21 standard;

• exploit the AXMEDIS Framework to make business with it for the reasons reported in the above list;

• collaborate with relevant and well known research institutions and companies of the areas, may be defining collaborative projects and strategic commercial goals;

• develop and test new algorithms and tools with respect to the state of the art solutions, in a very easy and cheep manner;

• add new content models and new DRM models and make them interoperable with MPEG-21 and others already in place on AXMEDIS;

• make visible and promote towards other AXMEDIS partners the produced algorithms, solutions and tools that can be used for content processing and modelling and that can be in some how integrated into the AXFW or proposed on the market. These tools may be provided for dissemination and promotion via AXMEDIS portal as demonstrators with limited capabilities;

• attend AXMEDIS training and tutorial days, access to training material;

• access to mailing list for sharing ideas on the future improvement of the AXMEDIS framework;

• etc.

An updated description of AXMEDIS Framework can be obtained from its coordinator. Demonstrations of AXMEDIS tools and of the whole AXMEDIS Framework are provided at AXMEDIS conferences and workshops, and in other occasions listed on AXMEDIS Portal. The AXMEDIS Framework can be accessed by following the Affiliation programme. The Affiliation to AXMEDIS may be performed by subscribing an Affiliation Agreement with an AXMEDIS Contractor.

In the M25-M36 period the AXMEDIS project has produced several publishable results, which can be recovered from the AXMEDIS Portal http://www.AXMEDIS.org/

A lot of additional material can be accessed from the AXMEDIS portal for example, training courses, tutorials, video, posters, and additional documentation.

• AXMEDIS major tools for production and processing, and players:

  • http://www.axmedis.org/documenti/view_documenti.php?doc_id=3269

• AXMEDIS P2P AXEPTool, please download and install to join the AXMEDIS P2P network with a super node:

  • axeptool-p2p-setup-v3-2-23.exe

  • http://www.axmedis.org/documenti/view_documenti.php?doc_id=3386

• AXMEDIS AXMEDIA P2P tool, please download and install to join the AXMEDIS P2P network:

  • axmedia-p2p-setup-v1-3.exe

  • http://www.axmedis.org/documenti/view_documenti.php?doc_id=3321

• AXMEDIS players for PDA:

  • http://www.axmedis.org/documenti/view_documenti.php?doc_id=3168

  • Content for PDA http://www.axmedis.org/documenti/view_documenti.php?doc_id=3246

• AXMEDIS DVD as distributed at IBC 2007 (it has to be used with an AXMEDIS P2P client since it is more than 4Gbyte),
  http://www.axmedis.org/documenti/AXMEDIS-DVD-July07-for-IBC07.iso.torrent

Additional (with respect to those automatically installed with the above installable file) AXMEDIS objects and AXCP rules can be obtained from:

• Examples of AXMEDIS objects:

  • Wiki page: http://www.axmedis.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=AXMEDIS+Cross+Media+Content%3A+Examples

  • Content to be downloaded: http://www.axmedis.org/area_4/doc.php?l_s=struttura&gruppo=22&order_by=data&asc_desc=asc

  • From the AXMEDIS P2P network that can be joined with the above mentioned tools: AXEPTool or AXMEDIA

• Example of the major AXMEDIS tools:

  • WEB page: http://www.axmedis.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=AXMEDIS+Tools+at+Work

  • Videos: http://www.axmedis.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Early+Demonstrations+and+Videos

  • To be downloaded http://www.axmedis.org/documenti/view_documenti.php?doc_id=3269

  • AXMEDIS plug ind development tool kit: http://www.axmedis.org/documenti/view_documenti.php?doc_id=3292

• Examples of the AXMEDIS Javascript for content production and distribution:

• Web page: http://www.axmedis.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=AXMEDIS+Content+Processing+Scripts

  • AXCP java script user manual : http://www.axmedis.org/documenti/view_documenti.php?doc_id=3168

Dissemination Material