INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION FOR STANDARDISATION
ORGANISATION INTERNATIONALE DE NORMALISATION
ISO/IEC/JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11
CODING OF MOVING PICTURES AND AUDIO

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 N6874

January 2005 – Hong Kong, CN

Source:

Convenor of MPEG

Status:

Approved by WG11

Subject:

MPEG Press Release

Date:

January 2005

AVC (MPEG-4 part 10 | H.264) continues its technology extensions

Hong Kong, China, January, 28 2005 – The 71st meeting hosted by Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and sponsored by both industry and academia again demonstrated the ability of experts to join forces in satisfying the demands of the multimedia industry. The partnership of MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) and VCEG (Video Coding Experts Group) that brought AVC (MPEG-4 part 10 | H.264) to the marketplace is now poised to extend itself once again into Scalable Video Coding (SVC). SVC efforts began as a stand-alone effort in MPEG but quickly merged into the work of the JVT when it was proven that AVC is the best technical base for this new and exciting technology. A first working draft was produced here in Hong Kong with completion scheduled for mid-2006. The SVC extension to Advanced Video Coding will add enhanced forms of quality scalability to further enable advanced video coding uses in a wide variety of applications, particularly including highly-heterogeneous environments.  

The continued success of joint efforts between experts was expressed by Stephen C.K. Lam, Distinguished Member of Technical Staff of Freescale Semiconductor Hong Kong Ltd. Wireless and Mobile Systems Group when he said, "We are delighted to sponsor the 71st ISO/IEC MPEG Meeting organized by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The advancement of MPEG standards and their benefits to multimedia systems, as demonstrated in this meeting, are vital to our future mobile and handheld products and platforms in 2.5G, 2.75G, 3G, UWB, and application processors."

In other MPEG News

MPEG continues to extend all of its technologies. MPEG is considering modernizing one of the fundamental components of MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 part 2 video technology, known as discrete cosine transform. The addition of a fixed-point version is being considered as a compatible, but optional, means of improving decoder precision. A draft call for proposals was issued for this technology.

The 2nd edition of Digital Item Declaration (DID is MPEG-21 part 2) was completed. This new edition has features that greatly improve flexibility and the range of applications for MPEG-21. New MPEG-21 technology was also started in the area of Digital Item Streaming and Media pointer and Fragment Identification Schema. When completed, the Digital Item Streaming features will broaden the appeal of using Digital Items in multimedia collection creation and delivery. The fragment identification part of MPEG-21 will provide technology to assist consumers in accessing specific parts of a movie stored in a consumer device. Other elements of MPEG-21 part 17 will also address physical media such as DVDs.

MPEG has completed an exciting addition to its suite of audio standards. MPEG-4 Lossless Coding of one-bit Oversampled Audio is in the final ballot phase. One-bit oversampled audio is popular as audiophile high quality consumer format on high-density optical discs.  It is also valuable as an audio archiving format. This addition provides industry with a remarkable advancement in data reduction techniques that provide methods of perfectly reconstructing the original signal.

MPEG has also completed a suite of profiles for MPEG-7. The Simple Metadata Profile (SMP) is used to describe simple multimedia clips such as music, images, and mobile applications; The User Description Profile (UDP) can be used to describe personal preferences and usage patterns of users of multimedia content; and the Core Description Profile (CDP) is used to describe a collection of multimedia contents for images, such as videos, and audio that can be used for distribution, broadcast television programming, and educational courseware.

Call for Proposal on MPEG Multimedia Middleware (M3W)

A Call for Proposals on MPEG Multimedia Middleware (M3W) was issued at this meeting. The objective of MPEG Multimedia Middleware (‘M3W’) is to allow applications to execute multimedia functions with a minimum knowledge of the middleware and to allow applications to trigger updates to the middleware to extend the middleware API.  This goal can be achieved by standardizing the API that the middleware offers.

Draft Call for Proposals on Fixed-point 8x8 IDCT and DCT

The implementation of decoders for several MPEG video coding standards (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 part 2) requires the implementation of an approximation of the 8x8 inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT) function. In addition, in practical terms, the implementation of encoders for these standards requires the implementation of approximations of both the IDCT and a forward discrete cosine transform (forward DCT, or simply DCT). MPEG is considering the need for development of a new voluntary standard specifying a particular fixed-point approximation to the ideal IDCT function, and possibly containing an additional (non-normative) example particular fixed-point approximation to the ideal forward DCT function.

Draft Call for Proposals on Multi-View Video Coding

There have been many input documents brought to MPEG in the last 2 years on free viewpoint video in which multiple-view video coding techniques show improved coding efficiency over existing MPEG compression tools. During this time, it has been recognized that multiple view video coding is a key technology that serves a wide variety of applications, including FTV (free-viewpoint television), 3DTV (3D television) and surveillance. MPEG will issue its final call in July with results to be evaluated in October of 2005.

A Call for information a Scalable Coding of Speech and Audio

WG11 is seeking Information on Scalable Coding of Speech and Audio.  This Call describes two use cases and associated requirements, and asks industry to contribute knowledge and information on this topic. Responses are due at the July 2005 meeting.

Details of how to obtain MPEG’s Calls for Proposal’s (CfPs) and other public information is shown below.

Workshops on Future Multimedia Developments

Periodically MPEG seeks to understand if there is potentially new technology for future video and audio codec standardization. After completing AVC, MPEG is reaching out to the community of experts both inside and outside of MPEG. Therefore, MPEG is organizing two workshops to explore future directions in video compression as first steps in a process devised to identify video coding standardization opportunities. The workshops will explore technical and other viewpoints including video coding features that are required by potential products and applications of tomorrow, where video compression techniques must be used. The first workshop will take place in the afternoon of Wednesday, 20 April, 2005 in Busan, Korea, and will include a series of short presentations on issues, technologies and applications. This will be followed by a discussion session to identify the most important trends. Based on the trends identified in Busan, a second full day workshop is held on Sunday, 16 October, 2005 in Nice, France, with tutorials and experts discussions. See the details associated with Calls for further information on the MPEG Website.

Further information

For further information about MPEG, please contact:

Dr. Leonardo Chiariglione, (Convenor of MPEG, Italy)
Via Borgionera, 103
I-10040 Villar Dora (TO), Italy
Tel: +39 011 935 04 61
Email: leonardo@chiariglione.net

or

Peter Schirling
IBM Research – Digital Media Standards
River Road, MS 862H
Essex Junction, VT 05452, US
Tel +1 802 769 6123
Fax: +1 802 769 7362
Email: schirlin@us.ibm.com

This press release and other MPEG-related information can be found on the homepage http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg

The text and details related to the Calls mentioned above (together with other current Calls) are in the Hot News section, http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/hot_news.htm.

These documents include information on how to respond the Calls. The MPEG homepage also has links to other MPEG pages, which are maintained by some of the subgroups. It also contains links to public documents that are freely available for download to non-MPEG members.

Journalists that wish to receive MPEG Press Releases by email can contact Peter Schirling.