XML data integration and distribution in a web-based object video server system

Data integration and distribution, albeit "old" topics, are necessary for developing a distributed video server system which can support multiple key functions such as video retrieval, video production and editing capabilities. In a distributed object video server (DOVS) system, objects from (homogeneous and heterogeneous) servers usually need to be integrated for efficient operations such as query processing and video editing. On the other hand, due to practical factors and concerns (such as resource cost and/or intellectual property concerns), raw/source video files often need to be well protected. XML is becoming the standard for multimedia data description (e.g. MPEG-7), and is very suitable for Web-based data presentation owing to its expressiveness and flexibility. In this paper, we describe our approach to process XML descriptions for data integration and distribution in a Web-based DOVS system.