Abstract: In this paper, an interoperable framework for the delivery of scalable media resources, e.g., in the standardized Scalable Video Coding (SVC) format, is presented. The framework provides support for Video on Demand (VoD) as well as multicast streaming and performs an efficient, generic, and interoperable adaptation of the streamed content based on MPEG-21 Digital Item Adaptation (DIA). The server as well as the clients of the streaming framework implement the MPEG Extensible Middleware (MXM) and utilize the MPEG Query Format (MPQF) for querying the available media resources. The framework has been fully integrated into the VLC media player. The architecture for both, VoD and multicast is presented in detail. Finally, a comparison in terms of performance of the generic MPEG-21 metadata-based adaptation approach to an SVC-specific adaptation approach is provided.

Abstract: The streaming of multimedia content over Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks is nowadays a well appreciated concept, as it helps distributing content to a great number of users and additionally reduces the server costs for providing the content. As the users of P2P networks often have different bandwidth connections and terminals, the same content is usually provided in different qualities. Although such a provision of the same content in different qualities helps to satisfy all users, it makes the sharing process less efficient. Users that are interested in the content in a specific quality can only exchange pieces with those users that are interested in the same content and the same quality. Thus, layered video coding, which provides different qualities within one bitstream, is especially well suited for P2P distribution. If the layered content is provided once in the best quality, all peers interested in this content can at least exchange the base layer, plus the enhancement layers they are interested in with those peers that have them available.

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: This paper presents an image retrieval suite called img(Rummager) which brings into effect a number of new as well as state of the art descriptors. The application can execute an image search based on a query image, either from XML-based index files, or directly from a folder containing image files, extracting the comparison features in real time. In addition the img(Rummager) application can execute a hybrid search of images from the application server, combining keyword information and visual similarity. Also img(Rummager) supports easy retrieval evaluation based on the normalized modified retrieval rank (NMRR) and average precision (AP).

Abstract: Compact Composite Descriptors (CCD) are global image features capturing both, color and texture characteristics, at the same time in a very compact representation. In this paper we propose a combination of two recently introduced CCDs (CEDD and FCTH) into a Joint Composite Descriptor (JCD). We further present a method for descriptor selection to approach the best ANMRR that would result from CEDD and FCTH. With our approach the most appropriate descriptor in terms of maximization of information content can be found on a per image basis without knowledge of the data set as a whole. Experiments conducted on three known benchmarking image databases demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique.