Summary of results of the first JCT-VC meeting in Dresden

--text adopted from Gary Sullivan

JCT-VC stands for Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding and is basically the successors of the Joint Video Team (JVT) which was responsible for standardizing the award-winning Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard. Last week, the JCT-VC met the first time in Dresden for the evaluation of the joint call for proposals on video compression technology and Gary Sullivan provided a nice summary over the general JCT-VC reflector which is excerpted here.

The name for the new standardization project is now "High Efficiency Video Coding" (HEVC).

The Joint Call for Proposals (CfP) on Video Compression Technology, which was issued by ISO/IEC MPEG and ITU-T VCEG in January 2010, had a very successful outcome. Twenty-seven complete proposal submissions were received, and the associated video material was evaluated in extensive subjective tests that were conducted prior to the first meeting of the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC). That meeting was held under MPEG auspices in Dresden during 15-23 April 2010. The contribution documents for those proposals are at the above link with contribution numbers JCTVC-A101 to JCTVC-A127.

The test results clearly indicated that some proposals exhibited a substantial improvement in compression performance as compared to the corresponding AVC anchors - and, in a number of cases, the performance of the best proposals can be roughly characterized as achieving similar quality when using only half of the bit rate.

All proposals basically used a coding architecture that was conceptually similar to AVC (and prior video coding standards), containing the following basic elements:

• Block-based
• Variable block sizes
• Block motion compensation
• Fractional-pel motion vectors
• Spatial intra prediction
• Spatial transform of residual difference
• Integer-based transform designs
• Arithmetic or VLC-based entropy coding
• In-loop filtering to form final decoded picture

However, there was a large variety of differences at the individual coding tool level.

For further details, please subscribe to the JCT-VC reflector and look for the corresponding email in the archives.

Beyond the Internet? − Innovations for future networks and services

Source: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/uni/kaleidoscope/2010/

ITU-T Kaleidoscope event, Pune, India, 13-15 Dec 2010

Contact: kaleidoscope@itu.int Beyond the Internet? - Innovations for future networks and services - is the third in a series of peer-reviewed academic conferences that aims at increasing the dialogue between experts working on the standardization of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and academia. By viewing technologies through a “Kaleidoscope”, these forward looking events also seek to identify new topics for standardization. Thus far, the Internet has proven to be robust and flexible and its continuous evolution has seen growth from a small experiment into a giant collaborative network capable of meeting the demands of more than one billion users. The rise of mobile access and its integration with optical transport networks present new challenges. Some experts question whether the current underlying architecture is sufficiently robust to address future demands or if a “clean slate” approach is needed to develop a really innovative Internet of the future. Kaleidoscope 2010 will highlight multidisciplinary aspects of future Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) including future services and applications demand as well as social and economic impacts. The focus will be on innovative technologies and contributors might have to challenge the fundamental networking design principles of the Internet. This academic conference is calling for original papers, from the world’s universities, industry and academic institutions. Accepted papers will be made available through the IEEE Xplore. A prize fund totaling $10,000 will be awarded by the three best papers. Young Author Recognition certificates will be also issued. Call for papers (deadline 30 April 2010) Sponsorship opportunities New this year In addition to a local universities exhibition, outstanding keynote speakers and invited papers, ITU Kaleidoscope 2010 will host Standards corner, a series of standardization tutorials and Jules Verne’s corner, a special space for science fiction writers and dreamers.

Announcement for a Joint Meeting on IPTV between MPEG and ITU-T Q.13/16

Announcement for a Joint Meeting on IPTV between MPEG and ITU-T Q.13/16 Saturday and Sunday, October 11-12, in Busan, Korea, collocated with the 86th MPEG meeting.

The purpose of this joint meeting, as stated in the liaison letter to ITU-T Q.13/16, w10090, at the last MPEG meeting, is to understand the ITU-T IPTV requirements and services scenarios, and to ensure that the three recommended MPEG technologies (BiFS, LASeR, and MXM) and any other MPEG technologies (such as those related to metadata, digital items and licenses) can, or can be profiled to, meet the ITU-T IPTV requirements and implement ITU-T IPTV service scenarios.

Schedule:
Saturday October 11, 10am-1pm and 2pm-5pm
Sunday October 12, 10am-1am

Location:
Same location as MPEG meets. Check with the registration desk for the meeting room information.

Note that Q.13/16 will have their own meeting on Friday October 10 and possibly Sunday October 12.