Source:
Convenor of MPEG
Status:
Approved by WG11
Subject:
MPEG Press Release
Date:
2006 July 28
ISO/IEC JTC
1/SC 29/WG 11
N8195
July 2006 –
Klagenfurt, AT
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Source: |
Convenor of MPEG |
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Status: |
Approved by WG11 |
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Subject: |
MPEG Press Release |
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Date: |
2006 July 28 |
Klagenfurt, Austria 2006 August 7 – The 77th MPEG meeting was held in Klagenfurt, Austria from 17-21 July 2006.
MPEG Systems News
MPEG has completed its work on font representation in Klagenfurt, Austria. Part 22 of MPEG-4 for “Open Font Format Specification” (OFF) that is based on the OpenTypeŽ specification used widely throughout industry today to represent font data. OFF will combine standards such as Unicode (ISO/IEC 10646) with other commonly available and widely used technology to make font distribution more efficient as well as providing broad support for advanced typographic features and text layout.
This standard along with the already-completed Font Compression and Streaming standard (MPEG-4 Part 18) provide a powerful addition to MPEG’s suite of standards that support the full range of multimedia technologies.
MPEG Video and Graphics News
MPEG's work on Multi-view Video Coding (MVC) has continued to show promise for innovative future applications such as free-viewpoint video and 3-D video. Consequently MPEG has concluded that MVC can best be standardized as an extension of the Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard (ISO/IEC 14496-10 | ITU-T Rec. H.264). At the Klagenfurt meeting, this led to an extension and expansion of the enormously successful collaboration with the ITU-T. The Joint Video Team (JVT) was established in December 2001 and continues to be a close collaboration between the ITU-T and ISO/IEC JTC 1. JVT will complete the technical design of the MVC extension for final standardization approval by January 2008.
At the 77th WG 11 meeting, inputs were received answering the Call for Proposals on Reconfigurable Video Coding (RVC). A first Working Draft combining ideas from several proposals was created, and Core Experiments were defined on Decoder Definition Language and Functional Unit (FU) Description. Typical FUs are decoder building blocks from existing MPEG standards at a sub-tool granularity level. RVC will allow for plugging together decoder configurations of FUs and defining the associated bitstream syntax. In a second phase, it is planned to support modifications of existing FUs and definitions of entirely new FUs. Such a framework would enable simple extensibility of MPEG standards by tailoring configurations as needed for specific applications. A first version of an RVC standard could become available during 2008.
An MPEG-J GFX (Graphical Framework eXtension) Player for constrained devices was demonstrated at the Klagenfurt meeting. This player is the first known implementation of the Part 21 of MPEG-4, which is also called MPEG-J GFX. MPEG-J GFX enables developers to create applications that combine MPEG audio and video streams, with advanced 3D graphics rendering, user interaction, and programmatic controls using the Java programming language.
MPEG Audio News
At the Klagenfurt meeting MPEG Surround completed its technical work. MPEG Surround (ISO/IEC 23003-1) enables a means of coding multi-channel audio that is backwards compatible with legacy stereo systems at bit rates comparable to those currently used by digital stereo music services. MPEG Surround can be used with existing stereo systems because MPEG Surround typically codes its input as a compressed stereo signal plus spatial side data. The standard supports a wide range of operating points for its spatial information in a range from zero up to those approaching transparent quality. MPEG Surround is another case of MPEG responding to industry demands for supporting the wide range of audio devices and equipment that consumers buy and already possess.
MPEG -21 News
MPEG-21 reached a significant milestone with the release of its 2nd edition of reference software on CD. This new edition includes software for all the current parts of MPEG-21 and, when fully completed, will be an invaluable resource for those wishing to utilize the MPEG-21 standards.
MPEG Application Formats
The new Music Player Application format (Second Edition) was released as a Committee Draft at the Klagenfurt, Austria meeting. Users of this new and improved format are able to create both unprotected and protected music files which include both single and multiple tracks. The format also allows users to convert the myriad of 'track metadata' formats to standard MPEG-7 metadata as well as attach and store JPEG images to accompany each track. The protection mechanisms can range from AES encryption to more complex full DRM solutions depending on the file format complexity chosen by the user.
Call for Proposals on MPEG-7 Query Format (MP7QF)
MPEG has issued a Revised Call for Proposals on MPEG-7 Query Format (MP7QF). The goal of this work on a MPEG-7 Query Format framework is to provide industry with a unified and standardized means of exchanging queries and responses for multimedia based searches from MPEG-7 databases. Extracting the features associated with multimedia content and applying it to search engines is becoming increasingly important especially for personal, as well as commercial audio and image media. It also becomes very practical with affordable consumer electronic devices such as MP3 recordable players, and digital cameras, and well-integrated smart phones in the marketplace.
Digging Deeper once again
Communicating the large and sometimes complex array of technology that the MPEG Committee has developed is not a simple task. The experts past and present have contributed a series of white-papers that explain each of these standards individually. The repository is growing each meeting so if something you are interested is not there yet it may be shortly - but do not hesitate to request it as well. You can start your MPEG adventure at: http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/mpeg-tech.htm
Further information
Future MPEG meetings are as follows:
Hangzhou, China 23-27 October 2006
Marrakech, Morocco 15-19 January 2007
San Jose, CA(US) 23-27 April 2007
Lausanne, Switzerland 2-6 July 2007
Shenzhen, China 22-26 October 2007
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:
mailto:leonardo@chiariglione.org
or
Peter Schirling
IBM Semiconductor and Technology
Services Program Manager
River Road, MS 862H
Essex Junction, VT 05452, USA
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 MPEG homepage:
http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg
The text and details related to the Call 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 the MPEG subgroups. It also contains links to public documents that are freely available for download by non-MPEG members.
Journalists that wish to receive MPEG Press Releases by email can contact Peter Schirling as shown above.