Abstract: In this thesis I give an overview of current research done in the fields of video abstraction, video browsing and interactive video retrieval. In these research fields, which are summarized under the term video exploration, new concepts and solutions are developed that should help the users to get more control over video content again. Furthermore, I am going to introduce "FVET", the Flexible Video Exploration Toolkit. This is a platform that has been developed in the scope of this thesis, to be able to experiment with different approaches of video exploration. As it can be extend with plug-ins, it is very flexible regarding future developments. For this purpose an own plug-in architecture has been implemented that addresses especially the needs of video exploration applications.

Abstract: The MPEG-21 standard defines a framework for the delivery and consumption of multimedia content. Within this framework the adaptation of content plays a vital role in order to support a variety of terminals and to overcome the limitations of the heterogeneous delivery networks. In most cases the multimedia content can be adapted by applying different adaptation operations that result in certain properties of the content. Therefore, an instance within the framework has to decide which adaptation operations have to be performed to achieve a satisfactory result. This process is known as adaptation decision taking and makes extensively use of metadata describing the possible adaptation operations, the usage environment of the consumer, and constraints concerning the adaptation. Based on this metadata a mathematical optimization problem can be formulated and its solution yields the optimal parameters for the adaptation operations. However, this generic approach enables a very generic class of optimization problems that are difficult to solve. Furthermore, the metadata is represented in XML resulting in a very verbose and ineffcient encoding. In this thesis an architecture for an Adaptation Decision Taking Engine (ADTE) is introduced. The ADTE operates both on XML metadata and on metadata encoded with the Binary Format for Metadata (BiM) enabling an effcient metadata processing. Concerning the solving of the optimization problem three different algorithms, ranging from a simple generate and test approach to the sophisticated Mesh Adaptive Direct Search, were implemented and evaluated.

2009
[2]	Manfred Del Fabro, Extensible Toolkit for Non-Linear Video Exploration, Master's thesis, Klagenfurt University, pp. 124, 2009. [bib] [abstract] Abstract: In this thesis I give an overview of current research done in the fields of video abstraction, video browsing and interactive video retrieval. In these research fields, which are summarized under the term video exploration, new concepts and solutions are developed that should help the users to get more control over video content again. Furthermore, I am going to introduce "FVET", the Flexible Video Exploration Toolkit. This is a platform that has been developed in the scope of this thesis, to be able to experiment with different approaches of video exploration. As it can be extend with plug-ins, it is very flexible regarding future developments. For this purpose an own plug-in architecture has been implemented that addresses especially the needs of video exploration applications.
2006
[1]	Ingo Kofler, MPEG-21-based Adaptation Decision Taking in the Binary Encoded Metadata Domain, Master's thesis, Klagenfurt University, Klagenfurt, Austria, pp. 119, 2006. [bib] [abstract] Abstract: The MPEG-21 standard defines a framework for the delivery and consumption of multimedia content. Within this framework the adaptation of content plays a vital role in order to support a variety of terminals and to overcome the limitations of the heterogeneous delivery networks. In most cases the multimedia content can be adapted by applying different adaptation operations that result in certain properties of the content. Therefore, an instance within the framework has to decide which adaptation operations have to be performed to achieve a satisfactory result. This process is known as adaptation decision taking and makes extensively use of metadata describing the possible adaptation operations, the usage environment of the consumer, and constraints concerning the adaptation. Based on this metadata a mathematical optimization problem can be formulated and its solution yields the optimal parameters for the adaptation operations. However, this generic approach enables a very generic class of optimization problems that are difficult to solve. Furthermore, the metadata is represented in XML resulting in a very verbose and ineffcient encoding. In this thesis an architecture for an Adaptation Decision Taking Engine (ADTE) is introduced. The ADTE operates both on XML metadata and on metadata encoded with the Binary Format for Metadata (BiM) enabling an effcient metadata processing. Concerning the solving of the optimization problem three different algorithms, ranging from a simple generate and test approach to the sophisticated Mesh Adaptive Direct Search, were implemented and evaluated.