Today, there is a strong trend towards networked multimedia devices. However,
common multimedia software architectures are restricted to perform all
processing on a single system. Available software infrastructures for distributed
computing - commonly referred to as middleware - only partly provide
the facilities needed for supporting multimedia in distributed and dynamic
environments. Approaches from the research community only focus on
specific aspects and do not achieve the coverage needed for a full-featured
multimedia middleware solution. The Network-Integrated Multimedia Middleware
(NMM) presented in this book considers the network as an integral part.
Despite the inherent heterogeneity of present networking and device technologies,
the architecture allows to extend control and cooperation to the
network and enables the development of distributed multimedia applications
that transparently use local and remote components in combination. This
middleware is augmented by several middleware services that especially aim
at providing additional support for developing complex applications that
involve mobile users and devices.