Transmission and Storage of Multimedia Data

Transmission and storage are core parts of multimedia communication systems.Before multimedia content can be consumed, it has to be made available to theuser either via a transmission network or locally from a storage medium. Digital techniques firstly are advantageous compared to traditional (analog) solutions, as they can provide better quality, consuming less transmission channel bandwidth.In contrast to analog technology, where transmission channels and storage media were designed for monolithic media types such as video or speech signals, digital representation enables conveying multimedia content by any transmission and storage medium, provided that sufficient channel capacity is made available. This chapter introduces solutions for digital media transmission and storage in scenarios where traditional services are being replaced, and also where new services are evolving, like internet streaming and mobile access to media sources. Traditional monolithic-media systems are more and more superseded by heterogeneous network environments and diversified presentation devices (terminals) for different situations. This includes mobile access, home access etc., such that requirements for flexible media adaptation are becoming ever more important.