"In 1998, SC24, the subcommittee of ISO/IEC JTC 1 concerned with computer graphics and image processing, completed work on a new standard for multimedia presentation; the PREMO standard (PResentation Environment for Multimedia Objects) is published under the official reference ISO/IEC 14478. PREMO essentially provides a middleware specification for multimedia programming, however, more generally it also serves as a reference model for distributed multimedia."--Jacket. "This book does not attempt to replace the official standard. However, since standards are usually dry, highly technical, and notoriously difficult to read, the authors felt encouraged to provide a more readable version of the basic concepts, to present some of the more important features of the PREMO objects in detail, to highlight the reasons for specific design decisions, and to give simple examples and motivation clarifying the underlying concepts. A particularly helpful feature of the book is that the authors provide detailed specifications of the PREMO objects in Java."--Jacket. "Together with the official ISO text, this book will help multimedia professionals understand and implement the PREMO standard. Nonetheless, the main audience of the book will constist of students and professionals who need to improve their understanding of the issues involved in distributed multimedia, regardless of the intricate details of the PREMO standard."--Jacket.