Happy World Standards Day 2025!

Celebrating innovation, interoperability, and collaboration through international standards.

Every year on October 14, we celebrate World Standards Day — honoring the collective efforts of experts and organizations worldwide who develop and maintain the standards that make modern digital life possible. For the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), this day marks decades of work in defining the technologies that power media, streaming, and immersive experiences worldwide.

A Year of Progress and New Milestones

Over the past year, MPEG and its working groups achieved remarkable progress across video, audio, systems, and AI-driven technologies — advancing the future of multimedia communication. Hot off the press, MPEG is proud to announce another Emmy® Technology & Engineering Award — this time for the Common Media Application Format (CMAF; ISO/IEC 23000-19), a landmark standard that brought long-awaited harmonization between DASH and HLS streaming formats (among others).

Next Generation Video Coding Beyond VVC

The Joint Video Experts Team (JVET), a joint effort of ISO/IEC and ITU-T, launched a Call for Evidence exploring technologies that go beyond Versatile Video Coding (VVC).

The goal: to identify breakthroughs that significantly improve compression efficiency, runtime performance, and functionality — from HDR and 8K video to gaming and user-generated content. Depending on the results, a Call for Proposals (CfP) for the next generation of video coding may follow in 2026, opening the door to AI-enhanced compression.

The current plan foresees a draft CfP in January 2026, followed by the final CfP in July 2026 and submissions in November 2026, with evaluations scheduled for January 2027. The first version of the resulting standard is expected to be finalized within three years thereafter.

MPEG-DASH (Sixth Edition)

Adaptive streaming continues to evolve, and the sixth edition of MPEG-DASH (ISO/IEC 23009-1) marks a major step forward. New features include enhanced low-latency streaming, content steering across multiple CDNs, compact signaling for faster playback, and even support for interactive storylines — enabling richer, more dynamic media experiences. MPEG-DASH remains the foundation of scalable, interoperable video streaming used by billions of devices worldwide.

AI and Machine-Oriented Coding

MPEG’s vision for Audio and Video Coding for Machines continues to take shape. The updated Call for Proposals on Audio Coding for Machines (ACoM) invites technologies for efficiently compressing audio and multi-dimensional signals — not only for human listening but also for machine learning and AI-driven analysis. In parallel, Video Coding for Machines (VCM) is being standardized to optimize visual data for computer vision and autonomous systems, reducing bitrate while preserving task-relevant features.

Open Font Format (Fifth Edition)

MPEG Systems (WG 3) reached the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) stage for the fifth edition of the Open Font Format (ISO/IEC 14496-22). This major update removes previous technical constraints, supporting over 64K glyphs and the entire Unicode range in a single file — a leap toward more inclusive digital typography across languages and writing systems.

3D and Volumetric Media Innovation

From Video-Based Dynamic Mesh Coding (V-DMC) to Low Latency Point Cloud Compression (L3C2), MPEG advanced two pivotal 3D graphics standards to final draft status. These technologies support real-time 3D content — from immersive AR/VR experiences to LiDAR-based perception in autonomous vehicles — enabling efficient, low-latency, and interoperable volumetric media.

Ensuring Media Authenticity

New amendments to MPEG Audio standards introduce mechanisms for Media Authenticity, allowing verification of content integrity and provenance across audio, video, and system layers. This step is essential for a trustworthy digital media ecosystem.

Genomics and AI Meet Multimedia

MPEG also looked beyond traditional media: the MPEG-G Genomics Hackathon, co-organized with partners such as Stanford Medicine, Philips, and Fudan University, challenges researchers to apply AI to microbiome data encoded in MPEG-G format. The goal: uncover new biomedical insights through standard-based, interoperable data compression.

Looking Ahead

From next-generation video compression and AI-enhanced codecs to trustworthy media and adaptive streaming, MPEG continues to define the building blocks of interoperable multimedia. As new technologies reshape how we experience and analyze content, standards ensure that innovation remains open, efficient, and globally accessible.

On this World Standards Day, we celebrate the dedication of all MPEG experts and contributors for shaping a smarter, more connected multimedia future.

Learn more at www.mpeg.org and stay tuned for updates from the next MPEG meeting in early 2026.