scope:

General

This International Standard is titled "Fragment Identification of MPEG Resources" and specifies a normative syntax for URI Fragment Identifiers to be used for addressing parts of any resource whose Internet Media Type is one of:

- audio/mpeg [RFC3003];

- video/mpeg [RFC2045, RFC2046];

- video/mp4 [RFC4337];

- audio/mp4 [RFC4337];

- application/mp4 [RFC4337].

MPEG URI Fragment Identifier schemes offer comprehensive and flexible mechanisms for addressing fragments of audiovisual content. Therefore, their use may potentially be extended to other audiovisual Internet Media types.

Such URI Fragment Identifiers are compliant to the generic syntax for URIs defined by IETF RFC 3986 and therefore can be used after the "#" character in a URI. Where appropriate, such Fragment Identifiers can also be used in IRIs as specified by IETF RFC 3987.

The syntax for URI Fragment Identifiers defined in this specification is based on the W3C XPointer Framework Recommendation and adds the ability to address:

- temporal, spatial and spatiotemporal locations of a resource;

- logical units of a resource according to a given Logical Model;

- byte ranges of a resource;

- items or Tracks of an ISO Base Media File;

- a portion of a video through the use of a Mask.

Organization of this document

This International Standards provides firstly a set of generic principles for addressing fragments of multimedia resources. This set of principles is referred to as MPEG URI Fragment Identifier Framework (Figure 1) and is specified in Clause 4.

Secondly, this International Standards defines a set of normative pointer schemes to be used in the context of the MPEG URI Fragment Identifier Framework. These pointer schemes are specified in Clause 5.

Finally, Clause 6 provides a set of tools for representing Logical Models for various types of media, in order to allow the addressing of fragments of content.

This International Standards also provides illustrative (non-normative) examples.

Relationship with the MPEG-21 Framework

The tools specified in this part of ISO/IEC 21000 allow identification of a part of a resource by providing a format for referencing the part using a Fragment Identifier. The Fragment Identifiers defined in this International Standards are distinct from the Digital Item Identifiers specified in ISO/IEC 21000-3 for identifying the "fundamental units of trade" within the MPEG-21 Multimedia Framework (i.e. Digital Items).