| Introduction |
What
has been the motivation writing these pages and what they hope to
achieve. |
| The
roadmap |
This
page. |
| Communication
before digital |
How
the forms of communication and of the business of providing the means
to communicate have evolved in analogue times. |
| Communication
and public authorities |
The
role of public authorities and international organisations in communication. |
| Digital
communication is good |
The
steps that brought digital technologies within the reach of exploitation
by the media industries. |
| Compressed
digital is better |
The
developments that led to practical exploitation of digital technologies
for the media. |
| The
first digital wailings |
The
first sample applications of digital technologies to the media. |
| Digital
technologies come of age |
The
first practical cases of exploitation of digital technologies for
the media. |
| Electronic
computers |
A
succinct history of the hardware side of electronic computers. |
| Carrying
the bits |
The
problem of storing and tranmitting bits on analogue carriers. |
| Telecom
bits and computer bits |
Bits
are bits are bits, but the telecom industry bits are different from
the computer industry bits. |
| The
faultline |
A
faultline in Leonardo's professional life that led to the creation
of MPEG. |
| MPEG's
first steps |
The
events that led to the definition of the first MPEG project: MPEG-1. |
| The
development of MPEG-1 - Part A |
The
development of MPEG-1: Video. |
| The
development of MPEG-1 - Part B |
The
development of MPEG-1: Audio, Systems and Reference Software. |
| Inside
MPEG-1 |
An
overview of the technical content of MPEG-1. |
| The
achievements of MPEG-1 |
How
MPEG-1 has influenced and benefited the media industry. |
| Conformance |
Why
conformance is needed for MPEG standards and how it can be assessed. |
| The
highs and lows of television |
The
importance of television, how it was deployed and how it (should have)
developed. |
| The
digital television maze |
Why
digital television is such a good idea and why people should be scared
by it. |
| The
development of MPEG-2 - Part A |
The
steps that led to the development of MPEG-2 Video. |
| The
development of MPEG-2 - Part B |
The
steps that led to the development of MPEG-2 Audio, AAC, Systems, DSM-CC
and RTI. |
| Inside
MPEG-2 |
An
overview of the technical content of MPEG-2. |
| The
impact of MPEG-2 |
How
MPEG-2 has influenced and benefited the media industry. |
| Beyond
MPEG-2 digital audio and video |
Why
there was a need for DAVIC, what it did and why it was wound up. |
| Protecting
content |
The
need to protect digital content and how it can be done. |
| The
need for standards |
Standards
are important but their role must be properly understood. |
| Patents
and standards |
If
standards require patented technology their use must obey some rules. |
| The
MPEG way of standards making |
The
unique MPEG way to develop standards. |
| An
MPEG meeting |
A
virtual experience of how an MPEG meeting unfolds. |
| Life
in ISO |
A
sample of life in an international organisation and how it affected
the first phases of MPEG. |
| Craft,
intellect and art |
People
agree that they must pay for the work of a blacksmith or an attorney,
but consider it an option to pay for the performance of a singer or
an actor. |
| Fixating
works |
How
technology helped distribute literary and artistic works. |
| Rights |
The
rights to a hammer are obvious, those to a book less so, those to
a bunch of bits are still waiting for a solution. |
| Computer
Programming |
The
role of software, and particularly operating systems, in IT. |
| OS
abstraction |
Is
there a way to remove dependency of applications from the operating
system? |
| Humans
interact with machines |
Interacting
with computers is not straightforward. Brief history of how we came
to the current Graphical User Interface. |
| Computers
create pictures and sound |
Humans
do not only perceive pictures and sound created by the real world
but by computers as well. Brief history of a complex business case
of IT use in the media space. |
| Internet
and World Wide Web |
The
fascinating story of two technology developments and how they changed
our lives. |
| The
mermaid of convergence |
Trying
to put some sense in a lot of nonsense. |
| MPEG's
third steps |
A
brief report on a large project integrating most of the different
technologies we have talked about so far into a usable standard. |
| Inside
MPEG-4 - Part A |
An
overview of the technical content of MPEG-4 Systems. |
| Inside
MPEG-4 - Part B |
An
overview of the technical content of the other MPEG-4 components. |
| The
impact of MPEG-4 |
How
MPEG-4 is changing the media. |
| Open
Source Software |
Writing
software may be an art and some artists have pretty special ideas
about the art they create. |
| MPEG
and Open Source Software |
In
spite of being a standards group operating in an industrial environment,
MPEG has developed software using principles similar to Open Source
Software. |
| The
communication workflow |
The
role of patents and standards in the creation of new forms of communication. |
| A
fuller form of communication |
The
myth of real-time communication with pictures in addition to audio |
| Tagging
information |
A
key technology to add descriptions to other data. |
| MPEG's
fourth steps |
The
MPEG standard that describes what a piece of content is or contains. |
| Inside
MPEG-7 |
An
overview of the technical content of MPEG-7. |
| The
impact of MPEG-7 |
How
MPEG-7 is beginning to change the way people access content. |
| Bits
and bytes |
Bytes
are made of 8 bits, but chopping a bitstream in chunks of 8 bits does
not make bytes. |
| A
world of peers |
Humans
talk to humans. Why should machines not talk to machines (intelligently)? |
| Technology
challenging rights |
The
many ways technology changes rights and their enforcements, as seen
from the lesson of MP3. |
| Opening
content protection |
Two
relevant stories teaching that if protecting content is used to preserve
its value, it does not help if people cannot access it. |
| The
world after MP3 |
MP3
has changed the media world forever. People must stop playing the
game their traditions force them to play. |
| Technology,
society and law |
Digital
Media Technologies change society and the laws governing it. This
change cannot be managed by simply putting patches on the old. |
| MPEG's
fifth steps |
MPEG-21
is the technology component of the global solution. |
| End
of the ride? |
MPEG
has played a major role in creating the new world of Digital Media
Technologies. Does it still have a role to play? |
| The
future of research |
Research
is the basis of human progress - and of MPEG work. We must make sure
that research is left in the hands of people who know what research
is. |
| Was
it worth doing? |
Digital
Media Technologies is the most challenging set of technologies ever
created and assembled. They should have been enablers of manifold
opportunities but they have not. |
| Conclusions |
Making
(a bit of) sense out of all that has been written. |
| Acknowledgements |
Thanking
the many people who have helped make this happen. |
| Acronyms |
In
the Digital Media field there are just too many acronyms. This page
at least says what they mean. |
| References |
Links
to a few useful readings. |
| |
|
