Main project objectives
The objective of the CAM4Home project is to create a metadata enabled content delivery framework to allow end users and commercial content providers to create and deliver rich multimedia experiences. These multimedia experiences are based on a novel concept of collaborative aggregated multimedia that is the main focus of the CAM4Home project. The Collaborative Aggregated Multimedia (CAM) refers to aggregation and composition of individual multimedia contents into a content bundle that may include references to content based services and can be delivered as a semantically coherent set of content and related services over various communication channels. The project will develop one common metadata framework for CAM content that can be applied for both personal and commercial applications and is interoperable with relevant standard metadata and content representation technologies. The project has integrative approach and utilizes existing technologies and standards developing only the necessary extensions and enhancements required to achieve the project goals. This approach will considerably facilitate the integration and industrial exploitation of the project's results.
An example of CAM content could be a TV series that has related additional multimedia content in form of a web site and possibly also includes related content based services like notification to user's mobile phone about the starting time of his/her favourite TV show. Also news about the actors and events taking place around the TV show can be considered as related content and therefore included in the content bundle delivered to the interested users via various channels (e.g. mobile networks via SMS, MMS or IMS services).
In addition to push type of CAM content distribution the project will also address interactive CAM content creation and delivery initiated by the end-users. The vision is that the end users are able to dynamically bundle and interactively communicate the digital content that they have produced themselves with the digital devices present in the home environment. The dynamic creation of content bundles and their interactive sharing in community networks is one of the project's objectives.
To realize and demonstrate its objectives, the CAM4Home project will develop a novel metadata framework, service architecture and service platform for collaborative aggregated multi-channel multimedia delivery into digital home environment. Focus of the CAM4Home project is illustrated in Figure 1. The general goals of the project can be divided into the following three main high level goals:
The CAM4Home project aims to specify and demonstrate a novel CAM4Home metadata framework that is able to encapsulate existing metadata technologies for multiple types of content and also able to incorporate references to content related services. This CAM4Home metadata framework will enable a novel way of content provisioning by bundling different types of content and content services into content bundles on the level of metadata. The project will develop one common metadata framework and content bundle description method that can be applied for both personal and commercial applications. These content bundles are referred to as collaborative aggregated multimedia and can be delivered into digital home environment over multiple communication channels and mediums in controlled (e.g. time synchronized) and adaptive (e.g. adaptation to environment capabilities and user preferences) manner.
The CAM4Home project aims to specify and design a novel CAM4Home service architecture that includes the necessary service components that are needed for supporting the content lifecycle of collaborative aggregated multimedia from the content bundle creation to distribution and finally also to interpretation and playback of the content bundles. On one hand the CAM4Home service architecture will provide technology transparent service definitions for processing the content bundles and their metadata in different phases of the CAM content lifecycle. On other hand the CAM4Home service architecture will present the requirements for the CAM4Home service platform realizing the functional software service components.
The CAM4Home project aims to develop and demonstrate a novel CAM4Home service platform that will realize the services defined in the CAM4Home service architecture as software services. The services provided by the CAM4Home service platform consist of seamlessly interoperating content related networked services. The CAM4Home service platform will consists of heterogeneous software and communication technologies for processing the content bundles and their metadata in different phases of CAM content lifecycle. The approach to develop the CAM4Home service platform is integrative rather than generative, accordingly existing software and communication technologies for content creation, representation, delivery and playback will be evaluated and utilized as far as possible and necessary extensions will be developed in the project to provide a uniform service platform that fulfils the requirements set for it by the service architecture.
Figure 1: CAM4Home project focus illustrated.