Web services selection for distributed composition of multimedia content

Growing numbers of pervasive devices are gaining access to the Internet. However, much of the existing rich multimedia content cannot be handled by mobile client devices with limited communication, processing, storage and display capabilities. In this paper, we propose new ways to enhance the universal access to multimedia content through Web Services and Semantic Web concepts. A semantic-based personalized delivery concept is drafted that makes use of these emerging technologies together with rather classical multimedia transcoding ideas. Instead of large, monolithic portal applications designed for multi-purpose adaptation and a single-source delivery, we propose to shift multimedia adaptation functionality to a portfolio of adequately selected Web Services. Web Services accessible through standard interfaces that allow for multimedia format conversion and composition can allow for a more flexible, application-independent adaptation and thus ease multimedia service provisioning essentially.