Source:
Convenor of MPEG
Status:
Approved by WG11
Subject:
MPEG Press Release
Date:
October 2004
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 N6703
October 2004 – Palma de Mallorca, ES
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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: |
October 2004 |
Palma de Mallorca, Spain, October 2004 – At its 70th meeting MPEG has evaluated four competing technologies for the efficient coding of spatial audio. This technology has great potential for producing high quality surround sound from a stereo or even mono stream. The goal is to add a small amount of data to the original signal in order to get a faithful spatial sound stage. The advantage of the techniques that will be used is that the resulting signal is backward compatible. This means that an Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) device will still be able to decode the base signal even when spatial signal is present. MPEG has started to draft a standard that merges the best two of the competing proposals.
In parallel video work MPEG has moved nearer to a new standard for Scalable Video Coding. Designed to allow a single video codec to work across a wide range of bit rates without compromising quality, the new standard will be based on the Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard and include new technologies such as motion-compensated temporal filtering, spatial up-sampling prediction and progressively-refined quantization. Experimental work involving numerous MPEG members continues to refine this technology which is expected to find applications in fixed and mobile networks.
In other MPEG News
A Call for Evidence on 3D AV Technology
In the last two years, MPEG has seen considerable interest in standardizing technologies for “free viewpoint video”. Free viewpoint video allows the viewer to choose an arbitrary viewing position, in the same way as a hologram does, but with all the quality of a normal, full-color video signal and without a hologram’s ‘see-through’ effects. To create free-viewpoint video, a signal is recorded using multiple cameras – sometimes more than 100 – and the pictures are combined into a single representation. A decoder can then allow viewing of the scene from any position.
MPEG issued a “Call for Comments on 3DAV” in October 2003 and a large number of those responding expressed an interest in the development of standards to enable applications such as:
- Free Viewpoint Television (FTV)
- Three-Dimensional Television (3DTV)
- Video Surveillance for security and other purposes.
MPEG is now calling for technical evidence on efficient multiple-view video coding technologies. If convincing evidence is received that such technologies exist and can be standardized, MPEG would proceed by issuing a Call for Proposals for appropriate technology and start to develop a new standard.
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Details of how to obtain MPEG’s Calls for Proposal’s (CfPs) and other public information is shown below.
Call for Proposals
PRELIMINARY Call for Proposals on Multimedia Middleware
MPEG has issued a Preliminary Call for Proposals for “MPEG Multimedia Middleware” (M3W). The goal of M3W is to allow applications to execute multimedia functions with a minimum knowledge of the middleware by standardizing the Application Programming Interface (API) that the middleware offers. It further seeks to allow applications to trigger updates to the middleware to extend this API. This is more difficult, as it requires mechanisms to manage the middleware API and to ensure that this process functions correctly.
Further information
Future MPEG meetings are as follows:
- Hong Kong, China January 17-21, 2005
- Busan, The Republic of South Korea April 18-22, 2005
- Poznan, Poland July 25-29, 2005.
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.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 MPEG homepage:
http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg
The text of the Call for Technical Evidence and Preliminary Call for Proposals 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.