Elementary stream management in MPEG-4

The forthcoming MPEG-4 standard specifies in its systems part an audiovisual scene description and functionality for the elementary stream management. The elementary streammanagement functionality is introduced here. It consists of a media object description framework that describes the streaming resources that form part of an MPEG-4 presentation and of a synchronization syntax incorporated in a flexible sync layer with an underlying systems decoder model. The final section outlines the transport and session setup for MPEG-4 presentations on relevant transport media, namely, the Internet and in digital broadcast scenarios.