Managing a media server content directory in absence of reliable metadata

Content metadata play an important role assisting users to find and access content items of interest. In general, explicit metadata created commercially for traditional media distribution such as TV and packaged content work adequately. However with the proliferation of Internet usage, networked devices, and tools to create, edit, re-distribute, and manage diverse content items, the problem of maintaining reliable metadata in directory services of media servers is very complex. In this paper we analyze existing metadata frameworks used by industry consortia, specifically UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) and discuss fundamental problems that cause content directories to be populated with unreliable metadata. We propose alternative methods based on implicit metadata and user-generated tagging that improve availability of reliable metadata.