INTRODUCTION
        MPEG-4 is an interactive virtual environment. In this virtual environment, natural and synthetic hybrid media are mixed and transmitted over heterogeneous network. Base on the great success of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 in the A/V market, the ISO MPEG group continues to develop their next standard - MPEG-4 that is expected to be completed by Dec. 1998. Under the trend of the integration of computer, communication, consumer electronic, and contents, MPEG-4 targets on these issues: authoring and encoding of object-oriented scene, encoding of natural and synthetic media, media streaming, uniform transmission interface in heterogeneous network environments. The goal of the Project MPEG-4 Scene Description Editor/Browser is to implment the Editor which can provide author the visual edit environment to edit the MPEG-4 scene and browse and play it immediately.


Feature of MPEG-4 Editor/Browser

1. Scalability

For multimedia applications demand, scalability is the most important property of MPEG-4 standard. Not only for  different user demand, computer computation power difference and herergeneous computer network are also scalability consideration. Our project is focus on three properties:
  • Quality Scalability
  • Spatial Scalability
  • Temporal Scalability

  • 2. Interactivity

     For multimedia content representation, user have more decision than before. User can determine multimedia how to represent on screen. Such as following:
    3. Support Heterogeneous Networking Environment
    For multimedia content transmission,  MPEG-4 not specifize proprietary network standard. MPEG-4 define DMIF for network transmission interface to integrate different network standard, and provide Qos (Quality Of Service) for user interaction.


    4. Support Natural and Synthetic Scenes

    Another feature of MPEG-4 is natural and synthetic scene coexistence. By MPEG-4 scene description language, multimedia content creator can integrate multimedia object of different type into the same scene. So MPEG-4 scene description language is also important intention of our MPEG-4 project.



    Component tool of MPEG-4 Editor/Browser
            The appropriate MPEG-4 Scene Description Editor/Brower should contain the following tools


    Application of MPEG-4

      1    Realtime Communication ¡]¢â¢ä phone¡BSurveillance¡^
      2    Surveillance  ¡]Resource¡BWatching¡^
      3    Moblile Multimedia  ¡]¢Þ¢Ò¢Ï¡APortable PC¡^
      4    Virtual City Guide Tour
      5    DVD
      6    Contents base Storage and Retrieval
      7    Internet / Intranet Video Distribution
      8    Broadcasting
      9    Post Production on Studio and TV
    10    Visualization of Harmonized Scene   ¡]Remote Cooperation Works¡^
    11    Application of Face Animation   ¡]Virtual Meeting¡^
    12    Digital Radio Broadcasting

    Relation Research



     

    Project member
             Liu, Deng-Rung ( Ph.D student )
                 Huang, Yi-Chin  ( Ph.D student )
                  Shieh, Meng-Jyi ( master student )
                 Wang, Hung-Chen ( master student )
                 Lin, Ang-Sheng ( master student )
                 Wang, Cheng-Sheng ( master student )
                 WoWoWo ( master student )