Resource adaptation based on MPEG-21 usage environment descriptions

This paper addresses several aspects related to the distribution of content. The first aim is to provide an overview of the Universal Multimedia Access (UMA) concept. The primary function of UMA services is to provide the best Quality of Service (QoS) or User experience by either selecting/adapting the content format to meet the playback environment, or adapting the content playback environment to accommodate the content. The second purpose of this paper is to describe how the concept of UMA relates to the emerging MPEG standard, Digital Item Adaptation (DIA), which will become Part 7 of the MPEG-21 standard. An update on the standards activity in this area is presented. Finally, the third purpose of this paper is to describe the impact that DIA will have on transcoding strategies, where we describe topics that we are currently working on and analyze some areas of future research.