Content Adaptation: The Panacea for Usage Diversity?

Abstract

The past decade has seen a variety of developments in the area of multimedia representation and communications and thus multimedia access. In particular, we are beginning to see delivery of all types of data for all types of users in all types of conditions. In a diverse and heterogeneous world, the delivery path for multimedia content to a multimedia terminal is not straightforward. The notion of Universal Multimedia Access (UMA) calls for the provision of different presentations of the same content/information, with more or less complexity, suiting the different usage environments (i.e., the context) in which the content will be consumed. ‘Universal’ applies here to the user location (anywhere) and time (anytime) but also to the content to be accessed (anything) even if that requires some adaptation to occur. Universal Multimedia Access requires a general understanding of personalization, involving not only the user’s needs and preferences, but also the user’s environment’s capabilities, e.g., the network characteristics, the terminal where the content will be consumed and the natural environment where a user is located, e.g., location, and temperature. In conclusion, with UMA content adaptation is proposed as the solution to bridge content authors and content consumers in the context of more and more diverse multimedia chains.