Futuremultimediacommunicationsystemshavetosupporttheuser'sneeds,theterminalcapabilities,thecontentspecificationandtheunderlyingnetworkingtechnologies.Therelatedprotocolsandapplicationsmustbedesignedfromthisintegrationperspectiveinacross-layercentricmanner.Inthispaper,weproposeanimplementationofastreamingservice(e.g.,TelevisionoverIPservice)withaunifiedQoSmanagementconceptthatenablesanIPdrivenintegrationofdifferentsystemcomponents(terminal,user,content,andnetwork).TheMPEG-21frameworkisusedtoprovideacommonsupportforimplementingandmanagingtheend-to-endQoS.Themainfocusofthispaperisonthearchitecturedesign,protocolsspecificationandimplementationevaluation.PerformanceevaluationsusingPSNRandSSIMobjectivevideoqualitymetricsshowthebenefitoftheproposedMPEG-21-enabledcross-layeradaptation.
