J HE FIELD of distributed multimedia systems has shown T extraordinary growth as witnessed by many new products, by the tremendous amount of interest shown by the media and the public, and by the large number of technical meetings and symposia concentrating on this field. The field is expected to be a major focus of effort in scientific and technological development for the rest of this decade. It is already opening up new research frontiers in a number of areas such as broadbandmultimedia

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... rking, storage systems, semiconductor technology, distributed systems, parallel processing, information theory, databases, real-time operating systems, computer graphics, human-computer interaction, algorithms, software engineering, etc. As a result of concerted efforts in these areas, many multimedia applications involving different media types such as video, audio, text, images, animation, and graphics are on the verge of realization. Various government and private organizations in the United States and overseas have undertaken major initiatives to build large digital multimedia libraries, to develop advanced information management systems for all sectors of business and economy, and to establish new types of electronic entertainment industries. The objective is to promote affordable and cost-effective technologies which allow users to author, store, communicate, and share multimedia information. Along with these promising prospects for potential benefits of the unfolding multimedia revolution, we are faced with technological challenges pushing the limits of available hardware and the ingenuity of human imagination. To realize actual