Draft Call for Proposals on High-Performance Video Coding (HVC)

--excerpted from here!

Purpose: A new generation of video compression technology that has substantially higher compression capability than the existing AVC (ITU-T H.264 | ISO/IEC 14496-10) standard is targeted (see [1][2] for background information).

Timeline:

• 2009/11/06: Draft CfP
• 2009/11/06: Availability of all test materials defined in Draft CfP (download information can be requested from contact persons)
• 2009/11/30: Availability of anchors
• 2010/01/15: Deadline for Pre-registration (mandatory): one of the contact persons (see Section 9) must be notified An invoice for the testing fee will be sent after pre-registration. Additional logistic information will also be sent to proponents by this date.
• 2010/01/22: Final Call for Proposals (Note: The Final Call may contain minor updates)
• 2010/02/15: Formal registration and payment of the fee
  
• 2010/02/22: Coded test material available at the test site (Note: People who formally registered will receive instructions regarding how to submit the coded materials)
  
• 2010/03/15: Subjective assessment starts at this date or sooner
• 2010/04/12: Registration of documents describing the proposals with contact persons
• 2010/04/13: Submission of documents to contact persons (Note: Contact persons will compile all proposal documents into one or more input documents and upload)
  
• 2010/04/16: Cross-checking of bitstreams and binary decoders (participation mandatory for proponents)
• 2010/04/17: Subjective test results available within standardization body
• 2010/04/17-23: Evaluation of proposals at standardization meeting (Note: Proponents are requested to attend this standardization meeting)
  

Anticipated tentative timeline after CfP
(refers to first version of the new standard, which may be extended later):

• Core experiments begin 2010/04
• Test model 2010/10
• Final standard approval 2012/07
  

Test classes:

• Class A: Cropped areas of size 2560x1600 taken from the following sequences (frame rates unchanged): First 5 s of "Traffic" (4096x2048p 30 fps), "PeopleOnStreet" (3840x2160p 30 fps).
• Class B: 1920x1080p 24 fps: "ParkScene", "Kimono" and 1920x1080p 50-60 fps: "Cactus", "BasketballDrive", "BQTerrace"
• Class C: 832x480p 30-60 fps (WVGA): "BasketballDrill", "BQMall", "PartyScene", "RaceHorses"
• Class D: 416x240p 30-60 fps (WQVGA): "BasketballPass", "BQSquare", "BlowingBubbles", "RaceHorses"
• Class E: 1280x720p 60fps: "Vidyo1", "Vidyo3" and "Vidyo4"
  

For further information about constraint sets, target rate points, and anchors, please go to directly the Draft CfP.

Test sites and fees:
The proposals submission material for Classes B, C and E will be evaluated by means of a formal subjective assessment process. The tests will be conducted at FUB (Test Coordinator, Rome, Italy), EBU (Geneva, Switzerland) and EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland).

Proponents will be charged a fee per submitted algorithm proposal. Such fee will be a flat charge for each proposal to cover the logistic cost (without any profit). The fee is non-refundable after the formal registration deadline has passed. The fee is estimated to be in the range of 4000 to 6000 Euros. The exact cost can only be determined after the number of submitted proposals is known, but over-payments will be reimbursed.

Additional requirements on submissions can be found here.

References:
[1] VCEG-AL96, Draft Requirements for Next Generation Video Coding, July 2009
[2] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, Vision and Requirements for High-Performance Video Coding, MPEG Document N10361, February 2009