Details for: The MPEG-4 book / › Ravensbourne University Library catalog

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The MPEG-4 book / Fernando Pereira, Touradj Ebrahimi.

Series: Prentice Hall IMSC Press multimedia seriesPublisher: Upper Saddle River, NJ [Great Britain] : Prentice Hall PTR, c2002Description: xxxvi, 849 p. ill.; 25 cm001: 8219ISBN: 0130616214Subject(s): Digital transmission | Video compression

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Copy number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Book	MAIN LIBRARY Book	PRINT	621.388 PER (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available		067016

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The MPEG-4 Book is the first comprehensive, targeted guide to the MPEG-4 standard and its use in cutting-edge multimedia applications. Leaders of the MPEG-4 standards community cover every element of the standard, and every aspect of MPEG-4 content creation and delivery, including: transport, coding, BIFS, object description and synchronization, Synthetic Natural/Hybrid Coding, MPEG-J, profiling, conformance testing, and more.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

Foreword (p. xix)
Preface (p. xxiii)
Abbreviations (p. xxvii)
1 Context, Objectives, and Process (p. 1)
1.1 MPEG-4 Objectives (p. 4)
1.1.1 Functionalities (p. 5)
1.1.2 Requirements (p. 7)
1.1.3 Tools (p. 10)
1.1.4 Applications (p. 12)
1.2 Formal Standardization Process (p. 13)
1.3 MPEG Modus Operandi (p. 15)
1.3.1 Mission (p. 16)
1.3.2 Principles (p. 17)
1.3.3 Standards Development Approach (p. 18)
1.4 MPEG-4 Standard Organization (p. 21)
1.5 MPEG-4 Schedule (p. 25)
1.6 MPEG-4 Industry Forum (p. 30)
2 MPEG-4 Overview (p. 37)
2.1 Design Goals (p. 38)
2.2 An End-to-End Walkthrough (p. 40)
2.3 Terminal Architecture (p. 43)
2.4 MPEG-4 Tools (p. 47)
2.4.1 Systems Tools (p. 47)
2.4.2 Visual Tools (p. 48)
2.4.3 Audio Tools (p. 50)
2.4.4 DMIF Tools (p. 51)
2.4.5 Other MPEG-4 Tools (p. 51)
2.4.6 Profiles and Levels (p. 52)
2.5 MPEG-4 and Other Multimedia Standards (p. 52)
2.6 MPEG-4 Applications (p. 56)
2.6.1 Multimedia Portals (p. 56)
2.6.2 Interactive Broadcasting (p. 57)
2.6.3 Multimedia Conferencing and Communities (p. 59)
3 Object Description and Synchronization (p. 65)
3.1 Object Descriptors: Entry Points to MPEG-4 Content (p. 65)
3.1.1 Syntactic Description Language (p. 66)
3.1.2 Object Description (p. 70)
3.1.3 Stream Description (p. 72)
3.1.4 Stream Relationship Description (p. 76)
3.1.5 Content Complexity Description (p. 77)
3.1.6 Streaming ODs (p. 79)
3.1.7 Linking a Scene to Its Media Streams (p. 82)
3.1.8 MPEG-4 Content Access Procedure (p. 85)
3.2 Semantic Description and Access Management (p. 86)
3.2.1 Object Content Information: Meta Information About Objects (p. 86)
3.2.2 Intellectual Property Management and Protection (p. 89)
3.3 Timing Model and Synchronization of Streams (p. 90)
3.3.1 Modeling Time (p. 90)
3.3.2 Time Stamps and Access Units (p. 92)
3.3.3 Packetizing Streams: The Sync Layer (p. 93)
3.3.4 Distributed Content, Time Bases, and OCR Streams (p. 96)
3.3.5 Media Time (p. 98)
3.3.6 System Decoder Model (p. 98)
4 BIFS: Scene Description (p. 103)
4.1 Basics of BIFS (p. 104)
4.1.1 Scene and Nodes (p. 104)
4.1.2 Fields and ROUTEs (p. 106)
4.1.3 Node Types (p. 108)
4.1.4 Subscenes and Hyperlinks (p. 109)
4.1.5 Scene Changes (p. 109)
4.1.6 Scene Rendering (p. 112)
4.1.7 Binary Encoding (p. 113)
4.1.8 Quantization (p. 114)
4.2 Basic BIFS Features by Example (p. 114)
4.2.1 Trivial Scene (p. 114)
4.2.2 Movie with Subtitles (p. 117)
4.2.3 Icons and Buttons (p. 119)
4.2.4 Slides and Transitions (p. 121)
4.2.5 Simple 3D Scene (p. 124)
4.2.6 Magnifying Glass (p. 128)
4.3 Advanced BIFS Features (p. 129)
4.3.1 Scripting (p. 130)
4.3.2 Encapsulation and Reuse (p. 131)
4.3.3 Text Layout (p. 134)
4.4 A Peek Ahead on BIFS (p. 136)
4.4.1 Media Nodes (p. 136)
4.4.2 New Sensors (p. 137)
4.4.3 FlexTime (p. 138)
4.4.4 ServerCommand (p. 139)
4.5 Profiles (p. 139)
4.6 All BIFS Nodes (p. 140)
5 MPEG-J: MPEG-4 and Java (p. 149)
5.1 MPEG-J Architecture (p. 154)
5.1.1 MPEGlets (p. 156)
5.1.2 Delivery (p. 158)
5.1.3 Security (p. 159)
5.2 MPEG-J APIs (p. 160)
5.2.1 Terminal APIs (p. 163)
5.2.2 Scene APIs (p. 164)
5.2.3 Resource APIs (p. 173)
5.2.4 Decoder APIs (p. 176)
5.2.5 Network APIs (p. 178)
5.2.6 Service Information and Section Filtering APIs (p. 180)
5.2.7 MPEG-J Profiles (p. 180)
5.3 Application Scenarios (p. 181)
5.3.1 Adaptive Rich Media Content for Wireless Devices (p. 181)
5.3.2 Enhanced Interactive Electronic Program Guide (EPG) (p. 181)
5.3.3 Enriched Interactive Digital Television (p. 182)
5.3.4 Content Personalization (p. 182)
5.4 Reference Software (p. 182)
6 Extensible MPEG-4 Textual Format (p. 187)
6.1 Objectives (p. 188)
6.2 Cross-Standard Interoperability (p. 189)
6.3 XMT Two-Tier Architecture (p. 190)
6.4 XMT-[Omega] Format (p. 193)
6.4.1 Reusing SMIL in XMT-[Omega] (p. 194)
6.4.2 Extensible Media (xMedia) Objects (p. 195)
6.4.3 Timing and Synchronization (p. 198)
6.4.4 Time Manipulations (p. 202)
6.4.5 Animation (p. 203)
6.4.6 Spatial Layout (p. 205)
6.4.7 XMT-[Omega] Examples (p. 205)
6.5 XMT-A Format (p. 210)
6.5.1 Document Structure (p. 210)
6.5.2 Timing (p. 211)
6.5.3 Scene Description (p. 212)
6.5.4 Object Descriptor Framework (p. 219)
6.5.5 Deterministic Mapping of XMT-A (p. 222)
6.5.6 Interoperability with X3D (p. 223)
7 Transporting and Storing MPEG-4 Content (p. 227)
7.1 Delivery Framework (p. 229)
7.1.1 DMIF-Application Interface (p. 231)
7.1.2 DMIF Network Interface (p. 238)
7.1.3 Existent Signaling Protocols (p. 246)
7.2 FlexMux Tool (p. 248)
7.2.1 Timing of a FlexMux Stream (p. 251)
7.3 MPEG-4 File Format (p. 253)
7.3.1 Temporal Structure: Tracks and Streams, Time and Durations (p. 254)
7.3.2 Physical Structure: Atoms and Containers, Offsets and Pointers (p. 257)
7.3.3 MPEG-4 Systems Concepts in MP4 (p. 259)
7.3.4 MPEG-4 Track Types and Storage (p. 259)
7.3.5 Hinting (p. 260)
7.3.6 Atoms (p. 262)
7.3.7 Random Access (p. 265)
7.3.8 An MP4 Example (p. 266)
7.3.9 Summary of MP4 (p. 268)
7.4 Transporting MPEG-4 over MPEG-2 (p. 268)
7.4.1 Brief Introduction to MPEG-2 Systems (p. 269)
7.4.2 Transport of MPEG-4 Elementary Streams over MPEG-2 Systems (p. 274)
7.4.3 Transport of MPEG-4 Scenes over MPEG-2 Systems (p. 275)
7.5 Transporting MPEG-4 over IP (p. 280)
7.5.1 Brief Introduction to Streaming over IP (p. 281)
7.5.2 Transport of Elementary Streams over IP (p. 283)
7.5.3 Transport of SL-Packetized Streams over IP (p. 285)
7.5.4 FlexMux Streams over IP and Timing Models (p. 288)
8 Natural Video Coding (p. 293)
8.1 General Overview (p. 294)
8.1.1 Functionalities and Application Scenarios (p. 294)
8.1.2 Basic Principles (p. 295)
8.2 Coding of Rectangular Video Objects (p. 300)
8.2.1 Overview (p. 300)
8.2.2 New Motion-Compensation Tools (p. 303)
8.2.3 New Texture Coding Tools (p. 311)
8.3 Coding of Arbitrarily Shaped Video Objects (p. 318)
8.3.1 Binary Shape Coding (p. 318)
8.3.2 Gray-Level Shape Coding (p. 323)
8.3.3 Coding of Boundary Macroblocks (p. 324)
8.4 Scalable Video Coding (p. 330)
8.4.1 Spatial Scalability (p. 332)
8.4.2 Temporal Scalability (p. 337)
8.4.3 SNR Fine Granularity Scalability (p. 340)
8.5 Special Video Coding Tools (p. 343)
8.5.1 Interlaced Coding (p. 344)
8.5.2 Error-Resilient Coding (p. 345)
8.5.3 Reduced Resolution Coding (p. 355)
8.5.4 Sprite Coding (p. 356)
8.5.5 Short Video Header Mode (p. 359)
8.5.6 Texture Coding for High-Quality Applications (p. 359)
8.6 Visual Texture Coding (p. 361)
8.6.1 VTC Tools (p. 363)
8.6.2 Wavelet Coding (p. 364)
8.6.3 Shape-Adaptive Wavelet Coding (p. 368)
8.6.4 Spatial and Quality Scalability (p. 369)
8.6.5 Bitstream Packetization (p. 371)
8.6.6 Tiling (p. 374)
9 Visual SNHC Tools (p. 383)
9.1 SNHC Overview (p. 384)
9.1.1 VRML, X3D: Why Is SNHC Needed? (p. 385)
9.1.2 SNHC Visual Tools (p. 388)
9.2 Face and Body Animation (p. 389)
9.2.1 Overview (p. 389)
9.2.2 Default Facial Expression and Body Posture (p. 392)
9.2.3 FBA Object (p. 393)
9.2.4 FDP and BDP Listing and Coding (p. 396)
9.2.5 FAP and BAP Listing and Coding (p. 403)
9.2.6 FBA and Text-to-Speech Interface (p. 410)
9.3 2D Mesh Coding (p. 411)
9.3.1 2D Mesh Object (p. 412)
9.3.2 Coding Scheme (p. 413)
9.3.3 Example (p. 420)
9.4 3D Mesh Coding (p. 421)
9.4.1 3D Mesh Object (p. 422)
9.4.2 Coding Scheme (p. 425)
9.4.3 Examples (p. 437)
9.5 View-Dependent Scalability (p. 440)
9.5.1 View-Dependent Object (p. 442)
9.5.2 Coding Scheme (p. 444)
9.5.3 Example (p. 446)
9.6 Profiles and Levels (p. 446)
10 Speech Coding (p. 451)
10.1 Introduction to Speech Coding (p. 452)
10.2 Overview of MPEG-4 Speech Coders (p. 454)
10.3 MPEG-4 CELP Coding (p. 455)
10.3.1 CELP Encoder (p. 455)
10.3.2 CELP Decoder (p. 456)
10.3.3 Parameter Decoding (p. 457)
10.3.4 Multipulse Excitation (p. 458)
10.3.5 Regular Pulse Excitation (p. 459)
10.3.6 Scalability (p. 460)
10.3.7 Silence Compression (p. 461)
10.4 MPEG-4 HVXC Coding (p. 461)
10.4.1 HVXC Encoder (p. 462)
10.4.2 HVXC Decoder (p. 470)
10.4.3 Variable Bit-Rate Coding (p. 474)
10.5 Error Robustness (p. 475)
10.5.1 Error-Resilient HVXC (p. 477)
10.5.2 Error-Resilient CELP (p. 481)
11 General Audio Coding (p. 487)
11.1 Introduction to Time/Frequency Audio Coding (p. 488)
11.2 MPEG-2 Advanced Audio Coding (p. 490)
11.2.1 Coder Overview (p. 491)
11.2.2 Gain Control (p. 491)
11.2.3 Filterbank (p. 493)
11.2.4 Quantization (p. 495)
11.2.5 Noiseless Coding (p. 497)
11.2.6 Temporal Noise Shaping (p. 499)
11.2.7 Prediction (p. 502)
11.2.8 Joint Stereo Coding (p. 504)
11.2.9 Bitstream Multiplexing (p. 507)
11.2.10 Other Aspects (p. 508)
11.3 MPEG-4 Additions to AAC (p. 508)
11.3.1 Perceptual Noise Substitution (p. 509)
11.3.2 Long-Term Prediction (p. 511)
11.3.3 Twin VQ (p. 513)
11.3.4 Low-Delay AAC (AAC-LD) (p. 515)
11.3.5 Error Robustness (p. 517)
11.4 MPEG-4 Scalable Audio Coding (p. 518)
11.4.1 Large-Step Scalable Audio Coding (p. 519)
11.4.2 Bit-Sliced Arithmetic Coding (p. 523)
11.5 Introduction to Parametric Audio Coding (p. 525)
11.5.1 Source and Perceptual Models (p. 526)
11.5.2 Parametric Encoding and Decoding Concepts (p. 528)
11.6 MPEG-4 HILN Parametric Audio Coding (p. 530)
11.6.1 HILN Parametric Audio Encoder (p. 530)
11.6.2 HILN Bitstream Format and Parameter Coding (p. 535)
11.6.3 HILN Parametric Audio Decoder (p. 538)
12 SNHC Audio and Audio Composition (p. 545)
12.1 Synthetic-Natural Hybrid Coding of Audio (p. 546)
12.2 Structured Audio Coding (p. 548)
12.2.1 Algorithmic Synthesis and Processing (p. 549)
12.2.2 Wavetable Synthesis (p. 552)
12.2.3 Interface Between Structured Audio Coding and AudioBIFS (p. 554)
12.2.4 Structured Audio Applications (p. 554)
12.3 Text-to-Speech Interface (p. 555)
12.4 Audio Composition (p. 557)
12.4.1 VRML Sound Model in BIFS (p. 558)
12.4.2 Other AudioBIFS Nodes (p. 560)
12.4.3 Enhanced Modeling of 3D Audio Scenes in MPEG-4 (p. 567)
12.4.4 Advanced AudioBIFS for Enhanced Presentation of 3D Sound Scenes (p. 569)
13 Profiling and Conformance: Approach and Overview (p. 583)
13.1 Profiling and Conformance: Goals and Principles (p. 584)
13.2 Profiling Policy and Version Management (p. 588)
13.3 Overview of Profiles in MPEG-4 (p. 592)
13.3.1 Visual Profiling (p. 592)
13.3.2 Audio Profiling (p. 602)
13.3.3 Graphics Profiling (p. 609)
13.3.4 Scene Graph Profiling (p. 613)
13.3.5 Object Descriptor Profiling (p. 619)
13.3.6 MPEG-J Profiling (p. 619)
14 Implementing the Standard: The Reference Software (p. 623)
14.1 Reference Software Modules (p. 625)
14.2 Systems Reference Software (p. 625)
14.3 MPEG-4 Player Architecture (p. 628)
14.3.1 Player Structure (p. 631)
14.4 Scene Graph (p. 632)
14.4.1 Parsing the Scene Graph (p. 633)
14.4.2 Rendering the Scene Graph (p. 638)
14.5 PROTOs (p. 639)
14.6 Synchronization (p. 643)
14.6.1 Sync Layer (p. 643)
14.6.2 MediaStream Objects (p. 644)
14.7 Object Descriptors (p. 646)
14.7.1 Syntactic Description Language (p. 646)
14.7.2 Parsing the OD Stream (p. 647)
14.7.3 Execution of OD Objects (p. 651)
14.8 Plug-Ins (p. 652)
14.8.1 DMIF Plug-Ins (p. 652)
14.8.2 Decoder Plug-Ins (p. 654)
14.8.3 IPMP Plug-Ins (p. 656)
14.9 2D Compositor (p. 656)
14.9.1 Using the Core Framework (p. 657)
14.9.2 DEF and USE Handling (p. 657)
14.9.3 Rendering Optimization (p. 658)
14.9.4 Synchronization (p. 659)
14.10 3D Compositor (p. 660)
14.10.1 Differences Between the 2D and 3D Compositors (p. 661)
14.10.2 Using the Core Framework (p. 662)
14.10.3 Overview of the Key Classes (p. 662)
14.10.4 3D Rendering Process (p. 662)
14.10.5 Support for 2D Nodes (p. 664)
14.10.6 User Navigation (p. 664)
15 Video Testing for Validation (p. 669)
15.1 General Aspects (p. 670)
15.1.1 Selection of Test Material (p. 671)
15.1.2 Selection of Test Subjects (p. 671)
15.1.3 Laboratory Setup (p. 672)
15.1.4 Test Plan (p. 672)
15.1.5 Training Phase (p. 673)
15.2 Test Methods (p. 673)
15.2.1 Single Stimulus Method (p. 674)
15.2.2 Double Stimulus Impairment Scale Method (p. 675)
15.2.3 Double Stimulus Continuous Quality Scale Method (p. 676)
15.2.4 Simultaneous Double Stimulus for Continuous Evaluation Method (p. 677)
15.3 Error-Resilience Test (p. 680)
15.3.1 Test Conditions (p. 681)
15.3.2 Test Material (p. 684)
15.3.3 Test Method and Design (p. 684)
15.3.4 Data Analysis (p. 686)
15.3.5 Test Results (p. 686)
15.4 Content-Based Coding Test (p. 688)
15.4.1 Test Conditions (p. 688)
15.4.2 Test Material (p. 689)
15.4.3 Test Method and Design (p. 689)
15.4.4 Data Analysis (p. 690)
15.4.5 Test Results (p. 690)
15.5 Coding Efficiency for Low and Medium Bit-Rate Test (p. 691)
15.5.1 Test Conditions (p. 691)
15.5.2 Test Material (p. 692)
15.5.3 Test Method and Design (p. 692)
15.5.4 Data Analysis (p. 693)
15.5.5 Test Results (p. 693)
15.6 Advanced Real-Time Simple Profile Test (p. 694)
15.6.1 Test Conditions (p. 696)
15.6.2 Test Material (p. 699)
15.6.3 Test Method and Design (p. 700)
15.6.4 Data Analysis (p. 701)
15.6.5 Test Results (p. 702)
16 Audio Testing for Validation (p. 709)
16.1 General Aspects (p. 710)
16.1.1 Selection of Test Material (p. 710)
16.1.2 Selection of Test Subjects (p. 711)
16.1.3 Laboratory Setup (p. 712)
16.1.4 Test Plan (p. 712)
16.1.5 Training Phase (p. 712)
16.2 Test Methods (p. 713)
16.2.1 Absolute Category Rating Method (p. 713)
16.2.2 Paired Comparison Method (p. 714)
16.2.3 MUSHRA Method (p. 715)
16.3 Narrowband Digital Audio Broadcasting Test (p. 717)
16.3.1 Test Conditions (p. 718)
16.3.2 Test Material (p. 719)
16.3.3 Assessment Method and Test Design (p. 720)
16.3.4 Data Analysis (p. 721)
16.3.5 Test Results (p. 722)
16.4 Audio on the Internet Test (p. 724)
16.4.1 Test Conditions (p. 724)
16.4.2 Test Material (p. 725)
16.4.3 Assessment Method and Test Design (p. 726)
16.4.4 Data Analysis (p. 727)
16.4.5 Test Results (p. 728)
16.5 Speech Communication Test (p. 730)
16.5.1 Test Conditions (p. 730)
16.5.2 Test Material (p. 732)
16.5.3 Assessment Method and Test Design (p. 733)
16.5.4 Data Analysis (p. 734)
16.5.5 Test Results (p. 734)
16.6 Version 2 Coding Efficiency Test (p. 736)
16.6.1 Test Conditions (p. 737)
16.6.2 Test Material (p. 739)
16.6.3 Assessment Method and Test Design (p. 740)
16.6.4 Data Analysis (p. 740013)
16.7 Version 2 Error-Robustness Test (p. 744)
16.7.1 Test Conditions (p. 744)
16.7.2 Test Material (p. 747)
16.7.3 Test Method and Experimental Design (p. 747)
16.7.4 Data Analysis (p. 747)
16.7.5 Test Results (p. 747)
A Levels for Visual Profiles (p. 753)
A.1 Video Buffering Verifier Mechanism (p. 754)
A.1.1 Video Rate Buffer Verifier Definition (p. 756)
A.1.2 Video Complexity Verifier Definition (p. 760)
A.1.3 Video Reference Memory Verifier Definition (p. 764)
A.1.4 Interaction Between the VBV, VCV, and VMV Models (p. 766)
A.2 Definition of Levels for Video Profiles (p. 767)
A.3 Definition of Levels for Synthetic Profiles (p. 767)
A.3.1 Scalable Texture Profile (p. 775)
A.3.2 Simple Face Animation Profile (p. 775)
A.3.3 Simple FBA Profile (p. 775)
A.3.4 Advanced Core and Advanced Scalable Texture Profiles (p. 776)
A.4 Definition of Levels for Synthetic and Natural Hybrid Profiles (p. 776)
A.4.1 Basic Animated Texture Profile (p. 776)
A.4.2 Hybrid Profile (p. 778)
B Levels for Audio Profiles (p. 781)
B.1 Complexity Units (p. 781)
B.2 Definition of Levels for Audio Profiles (p. 783)
B.2.1 Main Profile (p. 784)
B.2.2 Scalable Profile (p. 784)
B.2.3 Speech Profile (p. 785)
B.2.4 Synthetic Profile (p. 785)
B.2.5 High-Quality Audio Profile (p. 786)
B.2.6 Low-delay Audio Profile (p. 786)
B.2.7 Natural Audio Profile (p. 786)
B.2.8 Mobile Audio Internetworking Profile (p. 786)
C Levels for Graphics Profiles (p. 789)
C.1 Simple 2D Profile (p. 789)
C.2 Simple 2D + Text Profile (p. 790)
C.3 Core 2D Profile (p. 790)
C.4 Advanced 2D Profile (p. 793)
D Levels for Scene Graph Profiles (p. 797)
D.1 Simple 2D Profile (p. 797)
D.2 Audio Profile (p. 798)
D.3 3D Audio Profile (p. 801)
D.4 Basic 2D Profile (p. 802)
D.5 Core 2D Profile (p. 802)
D.6 Advanced 2D Profile (p. 806)
D.7 Main 2D Profile (p. 809)
E MPEG-J Code Samples (p. 815)
E.1 Scene APIs (p. 815)
E.2 Resource and Decoder APIs (p. 817)
E.2.1 Listener Class for Decoder Events (p. 819)
E.2.2 Listener Class for Renderer Events (p. 820)
E.3 Network APIs (p. 820)
E.4 Section Filtering APIs (p. 821)
Index (p. 823)

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Preface The last decade has shown the quick growth of multimedia applications and services, with audiovisual information playing an increasingly important role. Today's existence of tens of millions of digital audiovisual content users and consumers is tightly linked to the maturity of such technological areas as video and audio compression and digital electronics and to the timely availability of appropriate audiovisual coding standards. These standards allow the industry to make major investments with confidence in new products and applications and users to experience easy consumption and exchange of content. In this environment, the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is playing an important role, thanks to the standards it has been developing. After developing the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards, which are omnipresent in diverse technological areas and markets (such as digital television, video recording, audio broadcasting, and audio players and recorders), MPEG decided to follow a more challenging approach, moving away from the traditional representation models by adopting a new model based on the explicit representation of objects in a scene. The new object-based audiovisual representation model is much more powerful in terms of functionalities that it can support. The flexibility of this new model not only opens new doors to existing multimedia applications and services, it also allows the creation of a wide range of new ones, offering novel capabilities to users that extend or redefine their relationship with audiovisual information. The MPEG-4 standard is the first audiovisual coding standard that benefits from a representation model in which audiovisual information is represented in a sophisticated and powerful way that is close not only to the way we experience "objects" in the real world but also to the way digital content is created. In a way, MPEG-4 is the first digital audiovisual coding standard in which technology goes beyond a simple translation to the digital world of analog to exploit the full power of digital technologies. With the MPEG-4 standard emerging as the next milestone in audiovisual representation, interested people worldwide are looking for reference texts that, while not providing the level of scrutiny of the standard itself, give a detailed overview of the technology standardized in MPEG-4. Because it takes advantage of many technologies, MPEG-4 may seem a large and complex standard to learn about. However, it has a clear structure that can be understood by interested people. The purpose of this book is to explain the standard clearly, precisely, and completely without getting lost in the details. Although surely there will be other good references on MPEG-4, we tried hard to make this the reference by creating a book exclusively dedicated to MPEG-4, which addresses all parts of the standard, as timely and complete as possible, written and carefully reviewed by the foremost experts: those who designed and wrote the standard during many years of joint work, frustration, and satisfaction. To help readers find complementary or more detailed information, the chapters include a large number of references. Some of these references are MPEG documents not readily available to the public. For access to these, first check the MPEG Web page atmpeg.telecomitalialab.com. Some of the most important MPEG documents are available from that site. If that does not work, contact the MPEG "Head of Delegation" from your country (checkwww.iso.ch/addresse/address.html), who should be able to help you get access to documents that were declared "publicly available" but still may be hard to obtain. Organization of the Book The book is organized in three major parts: the introductory chapters, the standard specification chapters, and the complementary chapters. The introductory chapters, Chapters 1 and 2, introduce the reader to the MPEG-4 standard. Chapter 1 presents the motivation, context, and objectives of the MPEG-4 standard and reviews the process followed by MPEG to arrive at its standards. Chapter 2 gives a short overview of the MPEG-4 standard, highlighting its design goals. It also describes the end-to-end creation, delivery, and consumption processes, and it explains the relation of MPEG-4 to other relevant standards and technologies. Lastly, it proposes three example applications. The standard specification chapters describe and explain the MPEG-4 normative technology, as specified in the various parts of the standard. The first batch of these chapters addresses the technologies associated with the layers below the audiovisual coding layer. Chapter 3 addresses the means to manage and synchronize the potentially large numbers of elementary streams in an MPEG-4 presentation. Essential MPEG-4 concepts and tools such as object descriptors, the Sync layer, the system decoder model, and timing behavior are presented. Chapter 4 is dedicated to the MPEG-4 scene description format, a major innovation, supporting MPEG-4's object-based data representation model. It uses a number of examples to explain the BInary Format for Scenes, or BIFS format. Chapter 5 explains how it is possible to use the Java language to control features of an MPEG-4 player through the MPEG-J application engine. This chapter presents the MPEG-J architecture and describes the functions of an application engine. It also introduces the new Java APIs specific to MPEG-4 (Terminal, Scene, Resource, Decoder, and Network) that were designed to communicate with the MPEG-4 player. Chapter 6 presents the Extensible MPEG-4 Textual Format (XMT) framework, which consists of two levels of textual syntax and semantics: the XMT-A format, providing a one-to-one deterministic mapping to the MPEG-4 Systems binary representation, and the XMT-W format, providing a high-level abstraction of XMT-A to content authors so they can preserve the original semantic information. Chapter 7 describes the general approach and some specific mechanisms for the delivery of MPEG-4 presentations. It introduces the Delivery Multimedia Integration Framework (DMIF), which specifies the interfaces to mechanisms to transport MPEG-4 data, and describes two DMIF instances: MPEG-4 over MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 over IP. (Of course, MPEG-4 presentations can be delivered over other transport protocols as needed.) Finally, the chapter introduces the delivery-related tools included in the MPEG-4 Systems standard, notably the FlexMux tool and the MPEG-4 file format. While Chapters 3-7 address technologies specified in MPEG-4 Part 1: Systems, Chapters 8-12 focus on media representation technologies specified in MPEG-4 Visual, Audio, and Systems as far as a few synthetic audio techniques are concerned. Chapter 8 introduces all the tools related to video and texture coding for rectangular and shaped objects, and it presents the tools for important functionalities such as error resilience and scalability. Chapter 9 presents the coding tools specified by MPEG-4 to support the representation of synthetic visual content. These tools address face and body animation, 2D and 3D mesh coding, and view-dependent scalability. Chapter 10 introduces the coding tools for natural speech. To address a large range of bit rate, quality, speech bandwidth, and other functionalities, MPEG-4 specifies two coding algorithms: CELP and HVXC. Chapter 11 addresses the general audio coding tools. Here, three coding algorithms are adopted to fulfill the requirements: an AAC-based algorithm with some extensions over MPEG-2 advanced audio coding (AAC); TwinVQ, which is a vector quantization algorithm suitable for very low bit rates; and HILN, which is a parametric coding algorithm providing additional functionalities. Chapter 12 presents the MPEG-4 audio synthetic-natural hybrid coding (SNHC) and composition and presentation tools. The main SNHC audio tools are structured audio and the text-to-speech interface. The audio composition and presentation tools are known as AudioBIFS and Advanced AudioBIFS. Profiling and conformance are the major topics addressed in Chapter 13. Profiles and levels provide technical solutions for classes of applications with similar functional and operational requirements, allowing interoperability with reasonable complexity and cost. Moreover, they allow conformance to be tested, which is essential for determining if bitstreams and terminals are compliant. Chapter 14 presents the concept of reference software in MPEG-4 and elaborates on the software architecture of the MPEG-4 Systems player, included in Part 5 of the MPEG-4 standard. The complementary chapters (15 and 16) address the validation testing of the MPEG-4 video and audio technology. Although they do not cover MPEG-4 normative technology, they provide important information about the standard's performance from various points of view and for various potential applications. Excerpted from The MPEG-4 Book by Fernando C. Pereira, Touradj Ebrahimi All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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