Streaming content in MMS

That is why the key word to describe MMS content is rich. Complete with words, sounds and images, MMS content is endowed with the user’s ideas, feelings and personality. An MMS message can contain one or more of the following:

Text

As with SMS and EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service), an MMS message can consist of normal text. The length of the text is unlimited. The main difference between an EMS and MMS message is that in an MMS message, text can be accompanied not only by simple pixel images or melodies but by photographic images, graphics, audio clips and video clips.

Templates

The phone comes with a number of MMS pre- defined templates, for example templates for birthday cards, meeting requests etc.

Audio

MMS provides the ability to send and receive full sound (MIDI, MP3, iMelody, AMR) messages. Not only can users share a favourite song or ringtone with a friend, they can also use the mobile phone to record a sound and send it along with a message. As sound includes speech as well as music, this extra dimension to an MMS message allows for a spontaneous and immediate personal expression in communication messaging. Rather than sending a downloaded birthday jingle in EMS, a user can, for example, send a clip of his or her own personal rendition of “Happy Birthday”. The phone supports the MIDI format.

Pictures and themes

By using the integrated camera, users can take a picture or video clip and immediately send it to a recipient. The ability to send pictures is one of the most exciting attributes of MMS, as it allows users to share meaningful moments with friends, family and colleagues.

Mobile picture transmission also offers inestimable utility in business applications, from sending on- site pictures of a construction project to capturing and storing an interesting design concept for later review. Editing a picture by adding text allows users to create their own electronic postcards, an application that is expected to substantially cut into the traditional postcard market.

Themes (downloaded or pre-defined) can be exchanged via MMS.

White Paper K700

PIM communication with MMS

By using MMS, it is easy to handle PIM (Personal Information Manager) information. The user can send and receive business cards (vCard), calendar entries such as appointments (vCal) and notes (text/plain).

Streaming makes it possible to view files while they are being downloaded to the phone. The MPEG-4 file format can be used for continuous media along the entire delivery chain envisaged by the MMS, independent of whether the final delivery is done by streaming or download, thus enhancing interoperability.

In particular, the following stages are considered:

•Upload from the originating terminal to the MMS proxy.

•File exchange between MMS servers.

•Transfer of the media content to the receiving terminal, either by file download or by stream- ing. In the first case, the self-contained file is transferred, whereas in the second case the content is extracted from the file and streamed according to open payload formats. In this case, no trace of the file format remains in the content that is transmitted over the wire or over the air.

Additionally, the MPEG-4 file format can be used for storage in servers and the “hint track” mechanism can be used to prepare for streaming.

MMS technical features

The MMS standard, just like that of SMS, offers store-and-forward transmission (instant delivery) of messages, rather than a mailbox-type model. MMS is a person-to-person communications solution, meaning that the user gets the message directly into the mobile phone. He or she does not have to call the server to get the message downloaded to the mobile. Unlike SMS, the MMS standard uses WAP as its bearer protocol. MMS will take advantage of the high speed data transport technology GPRS and support a variety of image, video and audio formats to facilitate a complete communications experience.

18	February 2004