Thanks to more efficient encoding and compression, look to an ever expanding flow of rich media. The sheer amount of content in this category that is available is only going to increase with time. All of this makes metadata essential for successful rich media transfers.

"On the supply side, it is very important to be able to describe the content so it can be found, while on the demand side, it is important to be able to find whatever you are interested in," said Rob Koenen, founder and former president of the MPEG Industry Forum (MPEGIF). "Already now, it is very important to have the appropriate metadata, somewhere, to be able to find interesting TV programs and automatically record them for later viewing. MPEG-7, can help tremendously. MPEG-7 defines the binary encoding of metadata,"

The distribution of on-demand Internet media is moving to TV screens and the consumption of broadcast content is increasingly becoming on-demand. At some point, all content will be digital and more or less ‘rich’, according to Koenen.

Whereas work on MPEG-7 enhancements is specific to metadata and centers on the use of so-called descriptors, MPEG-21 encompasses everything under the sun in terms of multimedia, treating the content itself, the metadata and what glues all the combinations together including the other MPEG and non-MPEG standards as a unified mass of structured digital objects.

MPEG-21 makes it much easier to distribute media over very different channels, enabling content to adapt itself to the wide range of transmission and decoding environments. MPEG-21 provides a container known as the Digital Item for a whole range of possible content and then a set of tools that allow the adaptive and flexible delivery of that container and the constituent content, according to Ian Burnett, CTO of Australia-based Enikos. Several implementations are available, including one from Enikos, and a full set of reference software is available from MPEG.

"Satellite operators who wish to create archives of program content with accompanying metadata should seriously consider using Digital Items. They provide the ability to reuse content and metadata across a wide range of formats and platforms," said Burnett. "This is particularly important as ‘Author once, use many times’ becomes a mantra in the TV industries. Digital Items also offer the ability for operators to deploy content across many non-traditional platforms."

As MPEG-21 Digital Items provide multiple forms of content in a package, they deliver a complete user experience beyond that of watching a single video or listening to a music track. Because a range of complimentary material may be provided in Digital Items, sessions thus become a more meaningful part of content consumption, according to Burnett.

"This is important because convergence does not mean there will be less different distribution channels and consumption devices, but rather more," said Koenen. "MPEG-7 and MPEG-21 are largely complete, and as so often in the world of standards, there are many different ways to skin the cat. The future will need to prove if MPEG-7 and MPEG-21 will gain adoption or whether alternative technologies will provide similar capabilities."

For Bryan McGuirk, president of media solutions for SES Americom, this is all part of the search for more efficient and creative ways to distribute intelligent, session- based IP content that will transform the end user experience.

"We define rich media broadly as intelligent communication that allows the customer to control their own destiny. This intelligent video can be in the form of interactivity, addressability, or selectability," said McGuirk. "Rich media is already virtually everywhere and satellite definitely has a major role in distributing it to a vast number of devices — from the largest flat screens in the living room to the smallest, mobile gadgets that easily fit in the palm of your hand."

A key driver is the growing appetite for rich media content, intelligent video — both live and produced programming — anywhere, anytime. Video-on-demand, with its robust metadata, represents the first generation of rich media, according to McGuirk who views this intelligence as enabling video to be called, sorted, stored and played to the user demands — putting the viewer in control with a ‘what you want, when you want it’ programming schedule.

And do not confuse rich media with high definition TV, for example.

"Rich media is usually accompanied by program synchronized data, video and interactive elements that make it different from traditional video. Most often it is in Internet Protocol (IP) format, which allows it to be addressed intelligently to specific devices, like cell phones and set-tops," said McGuirk. "By formatting in IP, this video is often less expensive to produce and benefits from new economics that will enable hyperniche programming to be created affordably."

IP video gateways like SES Americom’s new IP-Prime platform allow session-based IP video to be aggregated, encoded and delivered to rich media devices of all kinds.

"Consider IP video and how it allows us to create ‘my primetime’ programming — now that many network shows are easily and affordably downloadable. We are now living in a world that welcomes session-based content and satellite operators must adapt or be left behind," said McGuirk.

"In the future, there will be a next generation of services designed to meet the ever-growing demand for feature rich content and high-end video on-the-go and just about anywhere on the planet. We have led this first phase and plan to continue driving IP technology into this next generation of devices and platforms."