The paper presenls the concept or Reactive and Adaptive Multimedia Object (RAMO), which lays down the foundation of a new approach for implementing the next generation of interactive and immersive multimedia applications. The R A M 0 concept is an object-oriented approach, which treats the elementary components of a virtual world as self-relying objects and encapsulates their representations and behaviours' abilities.Multimedia applications are achieving very high levels of realism and user immersion. The everincreasing demand for applications where real and virtual worlds fully merge makes the traditional approach of implementing multi-media applications, based on predefined interaction scenarios, inappropriate and inefficient. The whole concept of constructing multimedia applications must be redefined and brought closer to the way real worlds behave. This can only be achieved if we treat all the elements of a virtual world as individual objects, having their own properties and being able to interact autonomously. Interactions concern those among objects in their virtual world as well with the actors and elements of their surrounding real world. With such an approach multimedia applications arc no longcr prcdcfincd or confincd sccnarios, but rather fully modcllcd virtual worlds with a live of their own. This approach, while being the way forward towards a seainless merger of real worlds with virtual worlds. represents a major technological challenge.In the realm of Interactive Multimedia Application several research activities have been conducted in different public and private research centres around the world. However one can say that no model for the design of coniplex interactive inultiiiiedia scenarios have been properly defined for now. Even less interactions with rich entities and event-based scenarios are proposed. The present work addresses the design and modelling issues of generating dynamic time and event-based scenarios and managing interactions among multiple agent-oriented entities.The RAM0 concept is based on the notion that a new dimension of interactivity can be achieved by enabling multimedia objects to fulfil the following criteria: to become fully autonomous; to be independent from predefined scenarios (event and time-based scenarios); to fully emulate the characteristics and behaviours of the represented entities; and to be adaptable to any encompassing virtual environment.The correlated RAMO application that supervises such multimedia object supports intelligent intcractivc scrviccs by constituting a dynamic multimcdia prcscntation system. Some cntitics arc dedicated to the definition of contextual properties, they constitute the Contextual RAMO Objects. Their properties may correspond to several kinds of contextual information or to supervision capabilities such as managing and moderating interactions or leading collective tasks for instance. Other entities, called Embedded RAMO Objects, enact several media that are adaptive and constitute the animated multimedia content of a scene. These...

Abstract

Forms of broadcast media, such as TV and radio, are considered passive because the consumer simply receives the message and does not choose whether or not view or to listen (other than by changing the channel). Interactive television (iTV) is changing this. It gives users control over the programs they receive, as well as a range of online services such as electronic programming guides, e-mail, e-commerce, games, interactive advertising, video on demand (VOD), and Web browsing. This is taking place by creating enhanced programming and offering compelling interactive services. The iTV market is growing at a remarkable rate. Its services have been launched across many countries, including in much of Europe and the U.S. According to the state of interactive TV 2005 report from Kagan Research at present (http://www.kagan.com/), 34.1 million households subscribe to iTV services, and the number of subscribers is expected to reach 69 million by 2009. Revenues from electronic transactions for games, television, or t-commerce (television commerce), and interactive advertising are estimated to reach $2.4 million by 2009. During the same period, we estimate that the interactive services segment will generate $780 million in operator revenue or cable, digital broadcast satellites (DBS), and telecoms. The switch from analog TV to digital television is referred to as the digital TV (DTV) transition. We expect that in the coming decade most broadcast signals will become digital. In 1996, the U.S. Congress authorized the distribution of an additional broadcast channel to each TV broadcaster so that they could introduce DTV service while simultaneously continuing their analog TV broadcasts (http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html). In Europe several countries have already started making digital transmissions, and gouvernment has developed a roadmap that indicates when all transmissions will be digital. For the industry point of view, over the past few years it has been developing and selling devices for digital transmission and reception. The growing integration trend between personal computers and digital TV will affect the birth of new emerging markets for interactive TV broadcasting and Web TV. They can offer several different simultaneous TV programs, with visual and sound quality that is equal to or better than what is generally available nowadays. In addition, broadcasters can simultaneously transmit a variety of other information through a data bit stream to both enhance TV programming and to provide entirely new services (http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html). Both set-top boxes (STB) and DTV are able to handle digital content. The advantages of DTV consist of audio and video quality improvement, providing more channels, more languages per channel, and additional data, for instance applications delivering.