More and more data are structured, stored, and sent over a networ
using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) language. There are, however,
concerns about the verbosity of XML in such a way that it may restrain
further adoption of the language, especially when exchanging XML-based
data over heterogeneous networks, and when it is used within constrained
(mobile) devices. Therefore, alternative (binary) serialization formats
of the XML data become relevant in order to reduce this overhead.
However, using binary-encoded XML should not introduce interoperability
issues with existing applications nor add additional complexity to new
applications. On top of that, it should have a clear cost reduction
over the current plain-text serialization format. A first technology is
developed within the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group, namely the
Binary MPEG Format for XML. It provides good compression efficiency,
ability to (partially) update existingXMLtrees, and facilitates random
access into, and manipulation of, the binary-encoded bit stream.
Another technique is based on the Abstract Syntax Notation One
specification with the Packed Encoding Rules created by the ITU-T. This
paper evaluates both techniques as alternative XML serialization formats
and introduces a solution for the interoperability concerns. This
solution and the alternative serialization formats are validated
against two real-life use cases in terms of processing speed and cost
reduction. The efficiency of the alternative serialization formats are
compared to a classic plain text compression technique, in particular
ZIP compression.

Keywords: XML serialization formats · MPEG-B · ASN.1 · Information
encoding · Data interchange formats · Multimedia applications