A architecture for MHEG objects

Hypermedia applications are one of the most recent and most demanding computer uses. It is accepted that one of the main impediments to their widespread use is the lack of standards, and the lack of Open Systems with the possibility of having documents interchangeable between different hardware and software platforms. Several standards are emerging, one of which is the one being developed by the ISO/IEC WG12 known as the Multimedia and Hypermedia Information Coding Expert Group (MHEG). As desktop systems become more powerful, one of the main users of hypermedia applications is the home market. Therefore it is important to have standards and applications suitable for those platforms. This work reviews existing proposals for hypermedia architectures and interchange standards. It then assesses the suitability of the MHEG standard for use in open, distributed, and extensible hypermedia systems. An architecture for the implementa­tion of MHEG objects taking into account the limitations imposed by current desktop computers is also proposed. To assess the suitability of the proposed architecture, a prototype has been imple­mented. An analysis of the performance obtained in the prototype is presented and conclusions on the requirements for future implementations drawn. Finally, some suggestions to improve the MHEG standard are made.