Abstract:

The access devices of today are becoming increasingly sophisticated. For better or worse, these devices keep us connected at all times to our families, friends, and office. They allow us to give input on urgent matters, share our experiences and emotions, or just say hello. Thanks to multimedia, communication is much widespread and therefore more powerful. However, we face a serious problem of heterogeneity in our terminals, in our networks, and in the people who ultimately consume and interact with the information presented to them. This article describes work developed within the MPEG standardization committee to help alleviate some of the burdens confronting us in connecting a wide range of multimedia content with different terminals, networks, and users. Ultimately, this work will enable what we often refer to as Universal Multimedia Access (UMA).