MPEG targets next generation teleconferencing and personalized audio in its newest technology

Kyoto, Japan – The 91st MPEG meeting was held in Kyoto, Japan from the 18th to the 22nd of January 2010.

Highlights of the 91st Meeting

• Advanced technology enables bitrate-efficient teleconferencing and personalized audio
• MPEG and ITU-T SG16 form Joint Collaborative Team (JCT) for High Performance Video Coding
• Creating solutions for Advanced IPTV Terminals
• MPEG Extensible Middleware (MXM) standard debuts to facilitate easy access to MPEG tools across a global market
• MPEG creates efficient and flexible standard for 3D graphics compression
• MPEG Media Transport (MMT) workshop targets requirements and technologies for streaming of MPEG content

Wanna know more/details? Please check out the official press release!

Overview of Selected Current MPEG Activities

--this covers a report from the 91st MPEG meeting in Kyoto, Japan

Previously, I've always provided a written report but this time it comes in form of a presentation (slideshow) - enjoy!

View more presentations from Klagenfurt University.

IPTV and Video Networks in the 2015 Timeframe: The Evolution to medianets

Interesting article which also addresses "the way out of the middleware maze".

Interestingly, the article states that "although it is unlikely that all aspects of IPTV middleware, such as DRM or user control interfaces, will be standardized to the point that open application programming interfaces (APIs) will be available for all capabilities, the primary objective of specifying a standardized framework architecture for middleware is to enable definition of some of the open APIs to enhance interoperability and thereby reduce development costs."

Well, that's exactly what ISO/MPEG's Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT) standard is about. See my blog or http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/ for further details!

in reference to:

"The rapid progress being made in technologies that enable video content delivery over IP networks to consumers has prompted predictions that the evolution of IP-based next-generation networks will be largely driven by video service delivery requirements. This article surveys trends in the underlying technologies, extrapolating out to the 2015 timeframe, and drawing on the developments in standardization for IPTV, cable networks, and the IP NGN. These evolution trends lead to the notion of a medianet as a useful way to think of all of the enabling video and multimedia technologies. A medianet is essentially an IP network that is optimized to deliver video services to any or multiple display devices, and uses any of optical, cable, wireline, and wireless networks for this purpose."
- IEEE Communications Magazine (auf Google Sidewiki anzeigen)

MPEG readies the standard for rich user experiences in internet television

--taken from here

Xian, China – The 90^th MPEG meeting was held in Xian, China from the 26^th to the 30^th of October.

Highlights of the 90th Meeting

MPEG paves the way for the representation of metadata to enhance the IPTV user experience

MPEG has completed the final standardization (ISO/IEC 14496-20 AMD3) of the technologies enabling the integration of metadata for the creation of rich user experiences for multimedia services such as IPTV. For IPTV services, the provisioning of services and content using very detailed metadata is of primary importance, and the key to success is to provide a rich representation of such information to enable the user to select among these services and content based on their personal interests. The new standard will facilitate the easy and efficient integration of the structured metadata used for this purpose.

Reference software standard is now available for Professional Archival Application format

MPEG has delivered the final reference software standard for the Professional Archival Application Format (ISO/IEC 23000-6) which defines a packaging format for digital files. This standard will fulfill the industry need for an interoperable multimedia content archival format for the preservation of multimedia content. Several advanced features of the standard include comprehensive metadata to model all information necessary to support and preserve digital files, a flexible mechanism to pre-process digital files prior to their storage in archives, and a robust file format to allow easy access to both metadata and archived files.

MPEG amends its query format for efficient web search requests

MPEG has completed the first step toward enhancing its query format standard for fast and efficient web search requests. The MPEG Query Format standard (ISO/IEC 15923-12) or MPQF defines three main components: the Input Query Format to describe query requests to multimedia retrieval systems, the Output Query Format, a message container for retrieval results, and the Query Management Tools supporting service discovery, service aggregation and service capability descriptions. A new amendment to MPQF will enable the retrieval of data from an ontology (a rigorous representation of web data that describes the relationships amongst these data to facilitate their efficient retrieval) adding semantic expressions that can be used in request and result data representations, as well as a query type for SPARQL, a language supporting semantic web environment.

MMT workshop targets requirements and technologies for streaming of MPEG content

The Workshop for MPEG Media Transport (MMT) will be held on 20 January 2010 during the 91^st MPEG meeting at the Kyoto Research Park in Kyoto, Japan. The purpose of this event is to gather new requirements, use cases, and contributions related to the transport of multimedia content over heterogeneous networks. In particular, MPEG is gathering information on current limitations of available standards and new technologies in the area of media progressive download and streaming, delivery of MPEG media across emerging network environments, quality of service/experience as well as cross layer technologies.

MPEG plans to start a new standardization project on MMT with a Call for Proposals to be issued at the 91st meeting. The new standard is planned to reach the Final Draft International Standard stage in July 2011.

The MMT workshop is also free of charge. For more information, visit http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/hot_news.htm

Communicating the large and sometimes complex array of technology that the MPEG Committee has developed is not a simple task. The experts past and present have contributed a series of white-papers that explain each of these standards individually. The repository is growing with each meeting, so if something you are interested is not there yet, it may appear there shortly – but you should also not hesitate to request it. You can start your MPEG adventure at: http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/mpeg-tech.htm

Future MPEG meetings are planned as follows:

No. 91, Kyoto, JP, 18-22 January, 2010
No. 92, Dresden, DE, 19-23 April, 2010
No. 93, Geneva, CH, 26-30 July, 2010
No. 94, Guangzhou, CN, 11-15 October, 2010

For further information about MPEG, please contact:

mailto:leonardo@chiariglione.org

or

Dr. Arianne T. Hinds
Ricoh | IBM InfoPrint Solutions Company
6300 Diagonal Highway, MS 04N
Boulder, CO 80301, USA
Tel +1 720 663 3565
Email: arianne.hinds@infoprint.com

This press release and other MPEG-related information can be found on the MPEG homepage:

http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg

The text and details related to the Calls 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 to the Calls.

The MPEG homepage also has links to other MPEG pages which are maintained by the MPEG subgroups. It also contains links to public documents that are freely available for download by those who are not MPEG members. Journalists that wish to receive MPEG Press Releases by email should contact Dr. Arianne T. Hinds using the contact information provided above.

MPEG's Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT) Ready for Take Off?

During its 90th meeting, MPEG remarkably revised and improved the requirements for the Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT) standard. Please see a previous post for an overview. The main objective of AIT is as follows and taken from N11070.

The AIT standard will support the service providers’ drive to deploy innovative multimedia services ... by identifying a set of “Basic Services” and defining the corresponding set of protocols and APIs to enable any user in an AIT value chain to access those services in an interoperable fashion.

Currently, requirements for 30 of these basic services have been defined which can be clustered in services pertaining to the identification, authentication, description, storage, adaptation, posting, packaging, delivery, presentation, interaction, aggregation, management, search, negotiation, and transaction. Furthermore, basic services can be grouped to so-called "Aggregated Services" enabling one to offer a bundle of services to someone else.

Interestingly, the requirements document also defines some "standard-related requirements" which are as follows:

1. The Standard shall be based on technologies from Recommendations | International Standards unless no Recommendation | International Standard provides a solution satisfying the Requirements
2. The Standard shall only reference, not specify technologies. If new technologies will be required they will be specified by appropriate standards. However, some “glue” specification may be needed for integrating the technologies
3. The Standard shall specify (a) protocols to enable users to call services, (b) Application Programming Interfaces to access services, (c) bindings to specific programming languages, and (d) informative examples of AIT devices (server and client).

In other words, MPEG will only make references to existing standards and if something is missing, will specify amendments in the respective existing standards and reference them from within AIT.

Okay, so what's now the list of basic services and their definitions. Note that each of the services have individual requirements and also a section about what is being requested by proponents including a list of candidate technologies developed by MPEG.

1. Identify User: A Service that identifies Users in an AIT value chain
2. Authenticate User: A Service that Authenticate Users in an AIT value chain
3. Describe User: A Service that allows Description of Users of an AIT value chain
4. Identify Content: A Service that allows Identification of Content in an AIT value chain
5. Authenticate Content: A Service that allows Authentication of Content in an AIT value chain
6. Describe Content: A Service that allows Users associate Metadata to Content in an AIT value chain
7. Store Content: A Service that allows Users in an AIT value chain physically saves Content
8. Adapt Content: A Service that allows Users in an AIT value chain to process Content, e.g. conversion from one format to another, on the fly, …
9. Post Content: A Service that lets Users of an AIT value chain make other Users aware of their Content including a way to access it, e.g. as putting URI in an EPG or in a web page
10. Package Content: A Service that allows Users of an AIT value chain to make Content ready for delivery, e.g. creating MPEG-21 file for a certain Content for download
11. Deliver Content: A Service that allows Users to transfer Content between Users of an AIT value chain
12. Present Content: A Service that allows Users to experience Content, e.g. when a Device decodes video into a sequence of images displayed on the screen
13. Interact with Content: A Service that allows Users interact with Content
14. Identify Service: A Service that allows Users to assign a unique Identifier to Services of an AIT value chain
15. Authenticate Service: A Service that allows Users to confirm the identity of a Service
16. Describe Service: A Service that allows Users to associate metadata to Services of an AIT value chain
17. Aggregate Service: A Service that allows Users to combine different Services at the technical level to an Aggregated Service of an AIT value chain
18. Identify Device: A Service that allows Users to assign a unique Identifier to Devices of an AIT value chain
19. Authenticate Device: A Service that allows Users to confirm the identity of a Device
20. Describe Device: A Service that allows Users to describe Devices of an AIT value chain
21. Manage License: A Service that handles the life cycle of a Licence for Users in an AIT value chain, e.g., to create, issue, authenticate (i.e., verify integrity and authenticity of the Licence), authorize (the Rights in), revoke and expire a Licence.
22. Manage Tool: A Service that handles the life cycle of a Tool in an AIT value chain, e.g., to create, identify, describe, deliver, install, authenticate, authorize (use of), uninstall and update a Tool
23. Manage Event: A Service that caters to the life cycle of Events in an AIT value chain, e.g., to request and report Events
24. Identify Group: A Service that allows Users to assign a unique Identifier to Groups of an AIT value chain
25. Describe Group: A Service that allows Users to describe Groups of an AIT value chain
26. Authenticate Group: A Service that allows Users to confirm the identity of a Group
27. Manage Group: A Service that allows Users to manage life cycle of groups of entities such as Users, Device, Contents, or Services, in an AIT value chain
28. Search Entity: A Service that locate Entities such as Users, Device, Contents, or Services, in an AIT value chain satisfying some criteria
29. Negotiate Entity: A Service that helps Users of an AIT value chain achieve an agreement on the terms of use of an Entity, e.g., rights and conditions to use Content, Service (e.g., Delivery, Adaptation)
30. Transact Entity: A Service that allows Users in an AIT value chain to interface with Payment and Cashing systems

Note that the terms used in the basic services are defined in the Annex of N11063.

MPEG news: a report from the 90th meeting in Xi'an, China

The 90th MPEG meeting in Xi’an, China is coming up with some very interesting news which are briefly highlighted here. First and, I think, most importantly, the timeline for the new MPEG/ITU-T video coding format has been discussed and it seems the final Call for Proposals (CfP) will be ready in January 2010. A draft CfP is available now and hopefully will be also publicly available if they solve all the editing issues until early November. This means that the proposals will be evaluated in April 2010 (note: this will be a busy meeting as a couple of other calls need to be evaluated too; see later). The CfP defines five classes of test sequences with the following characteristics (number of sequences available in brackets):

• Class A with 2560x1600 cropped from 4Kx2K (2);
• Class B with 1920x1080p at 24/50-60 fps (5);
• Class C with 832x480 WVGA (4);
• Class D with 416x240 WQVGA (4); and
• Class E with 1280x720p at 50-60fps (3).

For classes B, C, and E subjective tests will be performed whereas classes A and D will be only evaluated objectively using PSNR. The reason for evaluating A and D using objective measurements is due to its insignificant subjective differences with B and C respectively. Finally, they’re still discussing about the actual common nickname name of the standard as it seems some are not happy with high-performance video coding but that’s yet another story…

Second, 3D video coding is still a major topic in MPEG but you probably need to wait yet another year until a Call for Proposals will be issued. That is, a 3DV standard will be probably available around the beginning of 2013 at the earliest. The major issue right now is the availability of content – as usual – and different device manufacturer standards with respect to 3D video.

The third major topic at this meeting was around AIT and MMT, two acronyms you shall become more familiar in the future. The former is referred to as Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT) and aims to develop an ecosystem for media value chains and networks. Therefore, basic (atomic) services will be defined including protocols (payload formats) to enable users to call these services, Application Programming Interfaces to access services, and bindings to specific programming languages. Currently, 30 of these basic services are foreseen which can be clustered in services pertaining to the identification, authentication, description, storage, adaptation, posting, packaging, delivery, presentation, interaction, aggregation, management, search, negotiation, and transaction. The timeline is similar as for HVC which means that proposals will be evaluated in April 2010. The latter is referred to as MPEG Media Transport (MMT) and basically aims to become a successor of the well-known MPEG-2 Transport Stream. Currently, two topics are explored for which also requirements have been formulated. The first topic covers adaptive, progressive transport and the second topic is in the area of cross-layer design. Further topics where this activity might look into are hybrid delivery and conversational services. As for HVC and AIT, the proposals are going to be evaluated in April 2010. However, in order to further refine this possible new work item, MPEG will held a workshop in January 2010 on the Wednesday during the Kyoto meeting focusing on “adaptive progressive transport” and “cross-layer design”.

However, MPEG is looking forward to a very busy meeting in April 2010 which by the way will be held in Dresden, Germany.

Another issue that has been discussed in Xi’an was (again) the development of a royalty free codec within MPEG. While some might say that within MPEG, trying to establish a royalty free codec is a first step towards failure, others argue that MPEG-1 is already royalty free, for MPEG-2 most patents expire in 2011, the Internet community is requesting this (e.g., IETF established coded group and Google has chosen On2, a royalty free codec), and, finally, MPEG-4 Part 10 royalty free baseline basically failed. Thus, maybe (or hopefully) this is the right time for a royalty free codec within MPEG and who can predict the future? Anyway, there’s some activity going on in this area and if you’re interested, stay tuned…

Finally, I’d like to note that MPEG-V (Media Context & Control) and MPEG-U (Rich Media User Interface) are progressing smoothly and both going hand in hand towards its finalization. This meeting, the FCDs have been approved which forms a major milestone as this was the last chance for substantial new contributions. One such input was related to advanced user interaction like the Wiimote, etc. which will become part of MPEG-V but used also by MPEG-U. Hence, one might argue merging these two standards into one single standard called MPEG-W (i.e., U+V=W) and a wedding ceremony could be performed at the next meeting in Kyoto with Geishas as witnesses … why not? Please raise your voice now or be silent forever!

Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT): Ad-hoc Group Meeting in Milan, Sep 2009

Milan has not only the 'Duomo' (see picture below) but was also the host for the AhG meeting (Sep 10-11) on Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT), one of MPEGs newest exploration activity. The output is publicly available and provides the following documents:

• Actors in AIT payment/cashing protocols
• Context and Objectives for Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT)
• Requirements and candidate technologies for Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT)
• Terminology for Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT)

Please note that these documents have not been approved by MPEG yet. However, these documents form the basis for a Call for Proposals (CfP) hopefully issued during MPEG's next meeting in Xian.

Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT)

MPEG is currently in an exploration phase for an "Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT)" and will - for the first time - publish the following documents:

• N10858, Context and Objectives for AIT
• N10859, Use Cases for AIT
• N10860, Draft Requirements on Interfaces to Payment and Cashing Systems
• N10861, Context and Objectives for Interfaces to Payment and Cashing Systems

All these documents have an editing period of two weeks and will be available on the 17th of July at the latest. The documents will be made publicly available here but I will also blog about it.

We also have some requirements for AIT in general but this document needs a major revision and clean-up before it can be published. I expect this to happen during the next meeting in October 2009.

Peer-to-peer for content delivery for IPTV services: analysis of mechanisms and NGN impacts

Just found this document here which is a (first) draft of ETSI TISPAN's work in the area of P2P television. It seems that P2P is becoming a major issue for standardization:

• IETF has mainly ALTO and P2PSIP working groups but also P2P streaming is pushing "on the market."
• DVB recently released an Internet TV questionnaire which has some P2P aspects.
  
• W3C had some P2P activity in the past but now it seems to be silent with respect to this topic. Maybe the situation changes in the future...
  
• MPEG provides the baseline technologies (codecs and file formats) but also started an exploration activity towards an Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT), probably jointly with ITU-T.

The future will show us which of these activites will be successful and I'd like to close with a quote that fits here very well, i.e., "The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from". --Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Let me know in case something is missing or wrong.

MPEG news: a report from the 87th meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland

MPEG’s high-performance video coding (HVC) standard is evolving and currently targets mobile devices, IPTV, and Ultra-HD. However, the trade-off between coding efficiency and codec complexity is still driving the thresholds which has been set at this meeting, well, at least initially. For low-complexity HVC is seeking for 25% gain in coding efficiency and for full-/increased-complexity the threshold is set to 50% gain in coding efficiency (cf. goal for AVC standardization). The application scenarios range from shared Ultra-HD to personalized experiences. The latter is targeting a viewing distance of 0.5*h (i.e., 50cm) and for personal use only. A vision document (N10361) has been issued at this meeting and interested parties are requested to join the Ad-hoc Group (AhG) for further discussions (N10371). One open issue with HVC is whether and how audio will adapt to these new developments, probably with high-performance audio coding (HAC) or can HE-AAC already complement HVC? Anyway, short viewing distance ultimately leads to short listening distances and a wide angle for the sound stage...

3D video coding (3DVC) has already a history within MPEG. A vision document has been produced here stating that MPEG’s version of 3D video shall be compatible with existing standards, mono/stereo devices, and existing/planned infrastructure. While the former seems to be very clear, i.e., backwards compatibility to AVC is desirable in the same way as it was for SVC, the latter needs some more discussions. How can one be compatible with planned infrastructures?

In the area of advanced IPTV terminal (AIT) we had a productive meeting with ITU-T SG16 Q.13. The objectives look very promising and aim to increase the user experience thanks to the usage of latest media coding, transport, and processing technologies. An AhG has been set up to discuss the details. Again, AhGs are open to the public and everyone can join and contribute.

The information exchange with virtual worlds (MPEG-V) has merged with the representation of sensory effects (RoSE) and will be now jointly developed under the umbrella of MPEG-V. However, it was sought that ‘information exchange with virtual worlds’ is no longer appropriate and they’re seeking for a new name. Any inputs are welcome and are discussed within the AhG that is open to everybody. Thus, join this exciting activity now! In its current working draft the following sensory effects are defined which shall create an enhanced, immersive user experience: various light effects, temperature, wind, vibration, water sprayer, perfumer/scent, fog, window blind/shadow, sound, and color correction.

Finally, MPEG got another Emmy, the "Technology and Engineering Emmy Award 2007-2008" for MPEG-4 AVC from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS). It seems that success within MPEG is from now on measured in terms of number of awards received ;-) And last but not least, if you’ve been ever interested in the MPEG vision, you may find it here.