The AxMEDIS 2006 International Conference seeks to promote discussion and exchange of ideas amongst researchers, practitioners, developers and users of tools, technology transfer experts, and project managers. This conference series brings together a variety of participants from the academic, business and industrial worlds, to address the emergent research and technological issues as well as the engineering and commercial challenges of large-scale collaborative production and distribution of media as experienced by the associated industrial sectors in the emergent media markets. The conference focuses on the outstanding problems to be resolved in the new age of media computing including cross-domain production, protection, representation, formatting, aggregation, workflow, distribution and business and transaction models i.e. all lifecycle aspects of the new media value chain management. Additionally it explores the integration of new forms of content, content management systems and distribution chains, with particular emphasis on cost structures re-engineering to support the reduction of costs and the integration of innovative solutions to facilitate complex creative collaboration in cross-domain media production with benefit realisation to all stakeholders through optimised rights-protective multichannel distribution.