HTTP Adaptive Streaming – Quo Vadis? (2024)

Telecom Seminar Series at TII, Jun 27, 2024, 04:00 PM Dubai

Abstract: Video traffic on the Internet is constantly growing; networked multimedia applications consume a predominant share of the available Internet bandwidth. A major technical breakthrough and enabler in multimedia systems research and of industrial networked multimedia services certainly was the HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) technique. This resulted in the standardization of MPEG Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) which, together with HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), is widely used for multimedia delivery in today’s networks. Existing challenges in multimedia systems research deal with the trade-off between (i) the ever-increasing content complexity, (ii) various requirements with respect to time (most importantly, latency), and (iii) quality of experience (QoE). Optimizing towards one aspect usually negatively impacts at least one of the other two aspects if not both. This situation sets the stage for our research work in the ATHENA Christian Doppler (CD) Laboratory (Adaptive Streaming over HTTP and Emerging Networked Multimedia Services; https://athena.itec.aau.at/), jointly funded by public sources and industry. In this talk, we will present selected novel approaches and research results of the first year of the ATHENA CD Lab’s operation. We will highlight HAS-related research on (i) multimedia content provisioning (machine learning for video encoding); (ii) multimedia content delivery (support of edge processing and virtualized network functions for video networking); (iii) multimedia content consumption and end-to-end aspects (player-triggered segment retransmissions to improve video playout quality); and (iv) novel QoE investigations (adaptive point cloud streaming). We will also put the work into the context of international multimedia systems research. 

HTTP Adaptive Streaming – Quo Vadis (2024) from Alpen-Adria-Universität

Hat-Trick Victory: MPEG-DASH Papers Shine in ACM SIGMM Test of Time Awards

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Multimedia (SIGMM) provides a Test of Time Award. The details for this award can be found here, and I took the liberty to copy the main aspects as follows.

"This award is presented every year, starting in 2020, to the authors of the paper published either 10, 11 or 12 years previously at an SIGMM sponsored or co-sponsored conference (so the 2020 award would be for papers at a 2008, 2009 or 2010 SIGMM conference). The award recognizes the paper that has had the most impact and influence on the field of Multimedia in terms of research, development, product or ideas, during the intervening years, as selected by a selection committee. The contributions the selection committee will focus on may be theoretical advances, techniques and/or software tools that have been widely used, and/or innovative applications that have had impact on multimedia computing."

Interestingly, in the past three years, papers related to MPEG-DASH were always among the winners or honorable mentions as follows:

2021 Awards

Winner (MM Systems & Networking)

Thomas Stockhammer. 2011. Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP --: standards and design principles. In Proceedings of the second annual ACM conference on Multimedia systems (MMSys '11). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 133–144. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1943552.1943572

Abstract: In this paper, we provide some insight and background into the Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) specifications as available from 3GPP and in draft version also from MPEG. Specifically, the 3GPP version provides a normative description of a Media Presentation, the formats of a Segment, and the delivery protocol. In addition, it adds an informative description on how a DASH Client may use the provided information to establish a streaming service for the user. The solution supports different service types (e.g., On-Demand, Live, Time-Shift Viewing), different features (e.g., adaptive bitrate switching, multiple language support, ad insertion, trick modes, DRM) and different deployment options. Design principles and examples are provided.

2022 Awards

Honorable Mention, in the category of “Multimedia Systems- Networks”

Saamer Akhshabi, Ali C. Begen, and Constantine Dovrolis. 2011. An experimental evaluation of rate-adaptation algorithms in adaptive streaming over HTTP. In Proceedings of the second annual ACM conference on Multimedia systems (MMSys '11). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 157–168. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1943552.1943574

Abstract: Adaptive (video) streaming over HTTP is gradually being adopted, as it offers significant advantages in terms of both user-perceived quality and resource utilization for content and network service providers. In this paper, we focus on the rate-adaptation mechanisms of adaptive streaming and experimentally evaluate two major commercial players (Smooth Streaming, Netflix) and one open source player (OSMF). Our experiments cover three important operating conditions. First, how does an adaptive video player react to either persistent or short-term changes in the underlying network available bandwidth. Can the player quickly converge to the maximum sustainable bitrate? Second, what happens when two adaptive video players compete for available bandwidth in the bottleneck link? Can they share the resources in a stable and fair manner? And third, how does adaptive streaming perform with live content? Is the player able to sustain a short playback delay? We identify major differences between the three players, and significant inefficiencies in each of them.

2023 Awards

Honorable Mention, in the category of "MM Systems & Networking"

Stefan Lederer, Christopher Müller, and Christian Timmerer. 2012. Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP dataset. In Proceedings of the 3rd Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys '12). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 89–94. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2155555.2155570

Abstract: The delivery of audio-visual content over the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) got lot of attention in recent years and with dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH) a standard is now available. Many papers cover this topic and present their research results, but unfortunately all of them use their own private dataset which -- in most cases -- is not publicly available. Hence, it is difficult to compare, e.g., adaptation algorithms in an objective way due to the lack of a common dataset which shall be used as basis for such experiments. In this paper, we present our DASH dataset including our DASHEncoder, an open source DASH content generation tool. We also provide basic evaluations of the different segment lengths, the influence of HTTP server settings, and, in this context, we show some of the advantages as well as problems of shorter segment lengths.

MPEG news: a report from the 135th meeting (virtual)

The original blog post can be found at the Bitmovin Techblog and has been modified/updated here to focus on and highlight research aspects. Additionally, this version of the blog post will also be posted at ACM SIGMM Records.

MPEG News Archive

The 135th MPEG meeting was once again held as an online meeting, and the official press release can be found here and comprises the following items:

• MPEG Video Coding promotes MPEG Immersive Video (MIV) to the FDIS stage
• Verification tests for more application cases of Versatile Video Coding (VVC)
• MPEG Systems reaches first milestone for Video Decoding Interface for Immersive Media
• MPEG Systems further enhances the extensibility and flexibility of Network-based Media Processing
• MPEG Systems completes support of Versatile Video Coding and Essential Video Coding in High Efficiency Image File Format
• Two MPEG White Papers:
  • Versatile Video Coding (VVC)
  • MPEG-G and its application of regulation and privacy

In this column, I’d like to focus on MIV and VVC including systems-related aspects as well as a brief update about DASH (as usual).

MPEG Immersive Video (MIV)

At the 135^th MPEG meeting, MPEG Video Coding has promoted the MPEG Immersive Video (MIV) standard to the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) stage. MIV was developed to support compression of immersive video content in which multiple real or virtual cameras capture a real or virtual 3D scene. The standard enables storage and distribution of immersive video content over existing and future networks for playback with 6 Degrees of Freedom (6DoF) of view position and orientation.

From a technical point of view, MIV is a flexible standard for multiview video with depth (MVD) that leverages the strong hardware support for commonly used video codecs to code volumetric video. The actual views may choose from three projection formats: (i) equirectangular, (ii) perspective, or (iii) orthographic. By packing and pruning views, MIV can achieve bit rates around 25 Mb/s and a pixel rate equivalent to HEVC Level 5.2.

The MIV standard is designed as a set of extensions and profile restrictions for the Visual Volumetric Video-based Coding (V3C) standard (ISO/IEC 23090-5). The main body of this standard is shared between MIV and the Video-based Point Cloud Coding (V-PCC) standard (ISO/IEC 23090-5 Annex H). It may potentially be used by other MPEG-I volumetric codecs under development. The carriage of MIV is specified through the Carriage of V3C Data standard (ISO/IEC 23090-10).

The test model and objective metrics are publicly available at https://gitlab.com/mpeg-i-visual.

At the same time, MPEG Systems has begun developing the Video Decoding Interface for Immersive Media (VDI) standard (ISO/IEC 23090-13) for a video decoders’ input and output interfaces to provide more flexible use of the video decoder resources for such applications. At the 135th MPEG meeting, MPEG Systems has reached the first formal milestone of developing the ISO/IEC 23090-13 standard by promoting the text to Committee Draft ballot status. The VDI standard allows for dynamic adaptation of video bitstreams to provide the decoded output pictures in such a way so that the number of actual video decoders can be smaller than the number of the elementary video streams to be decoded. In other cases, virtual instances of video decoders can be associated with the portions of elementary streams required to be decoded. With this standard, the resource requirements of a platform running multiple virtual video decoder instances can be further optimized by considering the specific decoded video regions that are to be actually presented to the users rather than considering only the number of video elementary streams in use.

Research aspects: It seems that visual compression and systems standards enabling immersive media applications and services are becoming mature. However, the Quality of Experience (QoE) of such applications and services is still in its infancy. The QUALINET White Paper on Definitions of Immersive Media Experience (IMEx) provides a survey of definitions of immersion and presence which leads to a definition of Immersive Media Experience (IMEx). Consequently, the next step is working towards QoE metrics in this domain that requires subjective quality assessments imposing various challenges during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Versatile Video Coding (VVC) updates

The third round of verification testing for Versatile Video Coding (VVC) has been completed. This includes the testing of High Dynamic Range (HDR) content of 4K ultra-high-definition (UHD) resolution using the Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG) and Perceptual Quantization (PQ) video formats. The test was conducted using state-of-the-art high-quality consumer displays, emulating an internet streaming-type scenario.

On average, VVC showed on average approximately 50% bit rate reduction compared to High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC).

Additionally, the ISO/IEC 23008-12 Image File Format has been amended to support images coded using Versatile Video Coding (VVC) and Essential Video Coding (EVC).

Research aspects: The results of the verification tests are usually publicly available and can be used as a baseline for future improvements of the respective standards including the evaluation thereof. For example, the tradeoff compression efficiency vs. encoding runtime (time complexity) for live and video on-demand scenarios is always an interesting research aspect.

The latest MPEG-DASH Update

Finally, I’d like to provide a brief update on MPEG-DASH! At the 135^th MPEG meeting, MPEG Systems issued a draft amendment to the core MPEG-DASH specification (i.e., ISO/IEC 23009-1) that provides further improvements of Preroll which is renamed to Preperiod and it will be further discussed during the Ad-hoc Group (AhG) period (please join the dash email list for further details/announcements). Additionally, this amendment includes some minor improvements for nonlinear playback. The so-called Technologies under Consideration (TuC) document comprises new proposals that did not yet reach consensus for promotion to any official standards documents (e.g., amendments to existing DASH standards or new parts). Currently, proposals for minimizing initial delay are discussed among others. Finally, libdash has been updated to support the MPEG-DASH schema according to the 5th edition.

An updated overview of DASH standards/features can be found in the Figure below.

MPEG-DASH status of July 2021.

Research aspects: The informative aspects of MPEG-DASH such as the adaptive bitrate (ABR) algorithms have been subject to research for many years. New editions of the standard mostly introduced incremental improvements but disruptive ideas rarely reached the surface. Perhaps it's time to take a step back and re-think how streaming should work for todays and future media applications and services.

The 136th MPEG meeting will be again an online meeting in October 2021 but MPEG is aiming to meet in-person again in January 2021 (if possible). Click here for more information about MPEG meetings and their developments.

MPEG news: a report from the 133rd meeting (virtual)

The original blog post can be found at the Bitmovin Techblog and has been modified/updated to focus on and highlight research aspects. Additionally, this version of the blog post will also be posted at ACM SIGMM Records.

MPEG News Archive

MPEG Systems File Format Subgroup wins Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award

The 133rd MPEG meeting was once again held as an online meeting, and this time, kicked off with great news, that MPEG is one of the organizations honored as a 72nd Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy® Awards Recipient, specifically the MPEG Systems File Format Subgroup and its ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF) et al.

The official press release can be found here and comprises the following items:

• 6th Emmy® Award for MPEG Technology: MPEG Systems File Format Subgroup wins Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award
• Essential Video Coding (EVC) verification test finalized
• MPEG issues a Call for Evidence on Video Coding for Machines
• Neural Network Compression for Multimedia Applications – MPEG calls for technologies for incremental coding of neural networks
• MPEG Systems reaches the first milestone for supporting Versatile Video Coding (VVC) and Essential Video Coding (EVC) in the Common Media Application Format (CMAF)
• MPEG Systems continuously enhances Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH)
• MPEG Systems reached the first milestone to carry event messages in tracks of the ISO Base Media File Format

In this report, I’d like to focus on ISOBMFF, EVC, CMAF, and DASH.

MPEG Systems File Format Subgroup wins Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award

MPEG is pleased to report that the File Format subgroup of MPEG Systems is being recognized this year by the National Academy for Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) with a Technology & Engineering Emmy® for their 20 years of work on the ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF). This format was first standardized in 1999 as part of the MPEG-4 Systems specification and is now in its 6th edition as ISO/IEC 14496-12. It has been used and adopted by many other specifications, e.g.:

• MP4 and 3GP file formats;
• Carriage of NAL unit structured video in the ISO Base Media File Format, which provides support for AVC, HEVC, VVC, EVC, and probably soon LCEVC;
• MPEG-21 file format;
• Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) and Common Media Application Format (CMAF);
• High-Efficiency Image Format (HEIF);
• Timed text and other visual overlays in ISOBMFF;
• Common encryption format;
• Carriage of timed metadata metrics of media;
• Derived visual tracks;
• Event message track format;
• Carriage of uncompressed video;
• Omnidirectional Media Format (OMAF);
• Carriage of visual volumetric video-based coding data;
• Carriage of geometry-based point cloud compression data;
• … to be continued!

This is MPEG’s fourth Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award (after MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 together with JPEG in 1996, Advanced Video Coding (AVC) in 2008, and MPEG-2 Transport Stream in 2013) and sixth overall Emmy® Award, including the Primetime Engineering Emmy® Awards for Advanced Video Coding (AVC) High Profile in 2008 and High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) in 2017, respectively.

Essential Video Coding (EVC) verification test finalized

At the 133rd MPEG meeting, a verification testing assessment of the Essential Video Coding (EVC) standard was completed. The first part of the EVC verification test using high dynamic range (HDR) and wide color gamut (WCG) was completed at the 132nd MPEG meeting. A subjective quality evaluation was conducted comparing the EVC Main profile to the HEVC Main 10 profile and the EVC Baseline profile to AVC High 10 profile, respectively:

• Analysis of the subjective test results showed that the average bitrate savings for EVC Main profile are approximately 40% compared to HEVC Main 10 profile, using UHD and HD SDR content encoded in both random access and low delay configurations.
• The average bitrate savings for the EVC Baseline profile compared to the AVC High 10 profile is approximately 40% using UHD SDR content encoded in the random-access configuration and approximately 35% using HD SDR content encoded in the low delay configuration.
• Verification test results using HDR content had shown average bitrate savings for EVC Main profile of approximately 35% compared to HEVC Main 10 profile.

By providing significantly improved compression efficiency compared to HEVC and earlier video coding standards while encouraging the timely publication of licensing terms, the MPEG-5 EVC standard is expected to meet the market needs of emerging delivery protocols and networks, such as 5G, enabling the delivery of high-quality video services to an ever-growing audience.

In addition to verification tests, EVC, along with VVC and CMAF were subject to further improvements to their support systems.

Research aspects: as for every new video codec, its compression efficiency and computational complexity are important performance metrics. Additionally, the availability of (efficient) open-source implementations (i.e., x264, x265, soon x266, VVenC, aomenc, et al., etc.) are vital for its adoption in the (academic) research community.

MPEG Systems reaches the first milestone for supporting Versatile Video Coding (VVC) and Essential Video Coding (EVC) in the Common Media Application Format (CMAF)

At the 133rd MPEG meeting, MPEG Systems promoted Amendment 2 of the Common Media Application Format (CMAF) to Committee Draft Amendment (CDAM) status, the first major milestone in the ISO/IEC approval process. This amendment defines:

• constraints to (i) Versatile Video Coding (VVC) and (ii) Essential Video Coding (EVC) video elementary streams when carried in a CMAF video track;
• codec parameters to be used for CMAF switching sets with VVC and EVC tracks; and
• support of the newly introduced MPEG-H 3D Audio profile.

It is expected to reach its final milestone in early 2022. For research aspects related to CMAF, the reader is referred to the next section about DASH.

MPEG Systems continuously enhances Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH)

At the 133rd MPEG meeting, MPEG Systems promoted Part 8 of Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), also referred to as “Session-based DASH,” to its final stage of standardization (i.e., Final Draft International Standard (FDIS)).

Historically, in DASH, every client uses the same Media Presentation Description (MPD), as it best serves the service's scalability. However, there have been increasing requests from the industry to enable customized manifests for enabling personalized services. MPEG Systems has standardized a solution to this problem without sacrificing scalability. Session-based DASH adds a mechanism to the MPD to refer to another document, called Session-based Description (SBD), allowing per-session information. The DASH client can use this information (i.e., variables and their values) provided in the SBD to derive the URLs for HTTP GET requests.

An updated overview of DASH standards/features can be found in the Figure below.

MPEG DASH Status as of January 2021.

Research aspects: CMAF is mostly like becoming the main segment format to be used in the context of HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) and, thus, also DASH (hence also the name common media application format). Supporting a plethora of media coding formats will inevitably result in a multi-codec dilemma that needs to be addressed soon as there will be no flag day where everyone will switch to a new coding format. Thus, designing efficient bitrate ladders for multi-codec delivery will an interesting research aspect, which needs to include device/player support (i.e., some devices/player will support only a subset of available codecs), storage capacity/costs within the cloud as well as within the delivery network, and network distribution capacity/costs (i.e., CDN costs).

The 134th MPEG meeting will be again an online meeting in April 2021. Click here for more information about MPEG meetings and their developments.

One-Year-ATHENA: Happy Birthday

One year ago in October 2019 we started the Christian Doppler Labor ATHENA at the University of Klagenfurt which is funded by the Christian Doppler Research Association and Bitmovin. The aim of ATHENA is to research and develop novel paradigms, approaches, (prototype) tools, and evaluation results for the phases

• multimedia content provisioning,
• content delivery, and
• content consumption in the media delivery chain as well as for
• end-to-end aspects, with a focus on, but not being limited to, HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS).

https://athena.itec.aau.at/

Prior to starting ATHENA, we were confronted with hiring a team from scratch (i.e., 2 post-docs and 6 PhD students), which kept us very busy but eventually, we found the best team for ATHENA. Within a few months only, we managed to have the first ATHENA publication accepted at an international conference and we prepared for the first conference travels. Unfortunately, during this period COVID-19 reached us and we (all) experienced a major disruption in our daily life. I am very proud of my entire team about how we dealt with this unpleasant situation.

In this first year of ATHENA, we got 12* papers accepted for publication at international conferences/journals, which makes one publication per month on average; a truely remarkable result for a one year old project (out of seven years in total). Finally, I would like to thank our (inter)national collaborators for joining one or the other effort within ATHENA.

The list of ATHENA publications after this first year is as follows:

1. “From Capturing to Rendering: Volumetric Media Delivery With Six Degrees of Freedom“, IEEE Communication Magazine.
2. “Fast Multirate Encoding for HTTP Adaptive Streaming Using Machine Learning“, IEEE International Conference on Visual Communications and Image Processing (VCIP) 2020.
3. “Relevance-Based Compression of Cataract Surgery Videos Using Convolutional Neural Networks,” ACM International Conference on Multimedia 2020.
4. “QUALINET White Paper on Definitions of Immersive Media Experience (IMEx)”, European Network on Quality of Experience in Multimedia Systems and Services.
5. “Scalable High Efficiency Video Coding based HTTP Adaptive Streaming over QUIC Using Retransmission“, ACM SIGCOMM 2020 Workshop on Evolution, Performance, and Interoperability of QUIC (EPIQ 2020).
6. “Towards View-Aware Adaptive Streaming of Holographic Content,” 2020 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo Workshops (ICMEW).
7. “H2BR: An HTTP/2-based Retransmission Technique to Improve the QoE of Adaptive Video Streaming“, In Proceedings of the 25th ACM Workshop on Packet Video (PV ’20).
8. “CAdViSE: Cloud-based Adaptive Video Streaming Evaluation Framework for the Automated Testing of Media Players“, In Proceedings of the 11th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys ’20).
9. “Objective and Subjective QoE Evaluation for Adaptive Point Cloud Streaming“, In 2020 Twelfth International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX).
10. “Performance Analysis of ACTE: A Bandwidth Prediction Method for Low-Latency Chunked Streaming“, ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications
11. “On Optimizing Resource Utilization in AVC-based Real-time Video Streaming“, 2020 IEEE Conference on Network Softwarization.
12. “Multi-Period Per-Scene Optimization for HTTP Adaptive Streaming“, 2020 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME).
13. “Fast Multi-Rate Encoding for Adaptive HTTP Streaming“, 2020 Data Compression Conference (DCC).

* ... the QUALINET white paper is not published at any conference/journal and that's why it's excluded from the counting. Nevertheless, this white paper is an important piece of work from QUALINET from various contributors working in the area of immersive media experiences.

MPEG news: a report from the 131st meeting (virtual)

The original blog post can be found at the Bitmovin Techblog and has been modified/updated here to focus on and highlight research aspects. Additionally, this version of the blog post will be also posted at ACM SIGMM Records.

MPEG News Archive

The 131st MPEG meeting concluded on July 3, 2020, online, again but with a press release comprising an impressive list of news items which is led by

MPEG Announces VVC – the Versatile Video Coding Standard

Just in the middle of the SC29 (i.e., MPEG’s parent body within ISO) restructuring process, MPEG successfully ratified -- jointly with ITU-T’s VCEG within JVET -- its next-generation video codec among other interesting results from the 131st MPEG meeting:

Standards progressing to final approval ballot (FDIS)

• MPEG Announces VVC – the Versatile Video Coding Standard
• Point Cloud Compression – MPEG promotes a Video-based Point Cloud Compression Technology to the FDIS stage
• MPEG-H 3D Audio – MPEG promotes Baseline Profile for 3D Audio to the final stage

Call for Proposals

• Call for Proposals on Technologies for MPEG-21 Contracts to Smart Contracts Conversion
• MPEG issues a Call for Proposals on extension and improvements to ISO/IEC 23092 standard series

Standards progressing to the first milestone of the ISO standard development process

• Widening support for storage and delivery of MPEG-5 EVC
• Multi-Image Application Format adds support of HDR
• Carriage of Geometry-based Point Cloud Data progresses to Committee Draft
• MPEG Immersive Video (MIV) progresses to Committee Draft
• Neural Network Compression for Multimedia Applications – MPEG progresses to Committee Draft
• MPEG issues Committee Draft of Conformance and Reference Software for Essential Video Coding (EVC)

The corresponding press release of the 131st MPEG meeting can be found here: https://mpeg-standards.com/meetings/mpeg-131/. This report focused on video coding featuring VVC as well as PCC and systems aspects (i.e., file format, DASH).

MPEG Announces VVC – the Versatile Video Coding Standard

MPEG is pleased to announce the completion of the new Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard at its 131st meeting. The document has been progressed to its final approval ballot as ISO/IEC 23090-3 and will also be known as H.266 in the ITU-T.

VVC Architecture (from IEEE ICME 2020 tutorial of Mathias Wien and Benjamin Bross)

VVC is the latest in a series of very successful standards for video coding that have been jointly developed with ITU-T, and it is the direct successor to the well-known and widely used High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standards (see architecture in the figure above). VVC provides a major benefit in compression over HEVC. Plans are underway to conduct a verification test with formal subjective testing to confirm that VVC achieves an estimated 50% bit rate reduction versus HEVC for equal subjective video quality. Test results have already demonstrated that VVC typically provides about a 40%-bit rate reduction for 4K/UHD video sequences in tests using objective metrics (i.e., PSNR, VMAF, MS-SSIM). Application areas especially targeted for the use of VVC include

• ultra-high definition 4K and 8K video,
• video with a high dynamic range and wide colour gamut, and
• video for immersive media applications such as 360° omnidirectional video.

Furthermore, VVC is designed for a wide variety of types of video such as camera captured, computer-generated, and mixed content for screen sharing, adaptive streaming, game streaming, video with scrolling text, etc. Conventional standard-definition and high-definition video content are also supported with similar gains in compression. In addition to improving coding efficiency, VVC also provides highly flexible syntax supporting such use cases as (i) subpicture bitstream extraction, (ii) bitstream merging, (iii) temporal sublayering, and (iv) layered coding scalability.

The current performance of VVC compared to HEVC-HM is shown in the figure below which confirms the statement above but also highlights the increased complexity. Please note that VTM9 is not optimized for speed but functionality (i.e., compression efficiency).

Performance of VVC, VTM9 vs. HM (taken from https://bit.ly/mpeg131).

MPEG also announces completion of ISO/IEC 23002-7 “Versatile supplemental enhancement information for coded video bitstreams” (VSEI), developed jointly with ITU-T as Rec. ITU-T H.274. The new VSEI standard specifies the syntax and semantics of video usability information (VUI) parameters and supplemental enhancement information (SEI) messages for use with coded video bitstreams. VSEI is especially intended for use with VVC, although it is drafted to be generic and flexible so that it may also be used with other types of coded video bitstreams. Once specified in VSEI, different video coding standards and systems-environment specifications can re-use the same SEI messages without the need for defining special-purpose data customized to the specific usage context.

At the same time, the Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF) announces a VVC patent pool fostering with an initial meeting on September 1, 2020. The aim of this meeting is to identify tasks and to propose a schedule for VVC pool fostering with the goal to select a pool facilitator/administrator by the end of 2020. MC-IF is not facilitating or administering a patent pool.

At the time of writing this blog post, it is probably too early to make an assessment of whether VVC will share the fate of HEVC or AVC (w.r.t. patent pooling). AVC is still the most widely used video codec but with AVC, HEVC, EVC, VVC, LCEVC, AV1, (AV2), and probably also AVS3 -- did I miss anything? -- the competition and pressure are certainly increasing.

Research aspects: from a research perspective, reduction of time-complexity (for a variety of use cases) while maintaining quality and bitrate at acceptable levels is probably the most relevant aspect. Improvements in individual building blocks of VVC by using artificial neural networks (ANNs) are another area of interest but also end-to-end aspects of video coding using ANNs will probably pave the roads towards the/a next generation of video codec(s). Utilizing VVC and its features for HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) is probably most interesting for me but maybe also for others...

MPEG promotes a Video-based Point Cloud Compression Technology to the FDIS stage

At its 131st meeting, MPEG promoted its Video-based Point Cloud Compression (V-PCC) standard to the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) stage. V-PCC addresses lossless and lossy coding of 3D point clouds with associated attributes such as colors and reflectance. Point clouds are typically represented by extremely large amounts of data, which is a significant barrier for mass-market applications. However, the relative ease to capture and render spatial information as point clouds compared to other volumetric video representations makes point clouds increasingly popular to present immersive volumetric data. With the current V-PCC encoder implementation providing compression in the range of 100:1 to 300:1, a dynamic point cloud of one million points could be encoded at 8 Mbit/s with good perceptual quality. Real-time decoding and rendering of V-PCC bitstreams have also been demonstrated on current mobile hardware.

The V-PCC standard leverages video compression technologies and the video ecosystem in general (hardware acceleration, transmission services, and infrastructure) while enabling new kinds of applications. The V-PCC standard contains several profiles that leverage existing AVC and HEVC implementations, which may make them suitable to run on existing and emerging platforms. The standard is also extensible to upcoming video specifications such as Versatile Video Coding (VVC) and Essential Video Coding (EVC).

The V-PCC standard is based on Visual Volumetric Video-based Coding (V3C), which is expected to be re-used by other MPEG-I volumetric codecs under development. MPEG is also developing a standard for the carriage of V-PCC and V3C data (ISO/IEC 23090-10) which has been promoted to DIS status at the 130th MPEG meeting.

By providing high-level immersiveness at currently available bandwidths, the V-PCC standard is expected to enable several types of applications and services such as six Degrees of Freedom (6 DoF) immersive media, virtual reality (VR) / augmented reality (AR), immersive real-time communication and cultural heritage.

Research aspects: as V-PCC is video-based, we can probably state similar research aspects as for video codecs such as improving efficiency both for encoding and rendering as well as reduction of time complexity. During the development of V-PCC mainly HEVC (and AVC) has/have been used but it is definitely interesting to use also VVC for PCC. Finally, the dynamic adaptive streaming of V-PCC data is still in its infancy despite some articles published here and there.

MPEG Systems related News

Finally, I’d like to share news related to MPEG systems and the carriage of video data as depicted in the figure below. In particular, the carriage of VVC (and also EVC) has been now enabled in MPEG-2 Systems (specifically within the transport stream) and in the various file formats (specifically within the NAL file format). The latter is used also in CMAF and DASH which makes VVC (and also EVC) ready for HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS).

Carriage of Video in MPEG Systems Standards (taken from https://bit.ly/mpeg131).

What about DASH and CMAF?

CMAF maintains a so-called "technologies under consideration" document which contains -- among other things -- a proposed VVC CMAF profile. Additionally, there are two exploration activities related to CMAF, i.e., (i) multi-stream support and (ii) storage, archiving, and content management for CMAF files.

DASH works on potential improvement for the first amendment to ISO/IEC 23009-1 4th edition related to CMAF support, events processing model, and other extensions. Additionally, there’s a working draft for a second amendment to ISO/IEC 23009-1 4th edition enabling bandwidth change signaling track and other enhancements. Furthermore, ISO/IEC 23009-8 (Session-based DASH operations) has been advanced to Draft International Standard (see also my last report).

An overview of the current status of MPEG-DASH can be found in the figure below.

The next meeting will be again an online meeting in October 2020.

Finally, MPEG organized a Webinar presenting results from the 131st MPEG meeting. The slides and video recordings are available here: https://bit.ly/mpeg131.

Click here for more information about MPEG meetings and their developments.

DCC’20: Fast Multi-Rate Encoding for Adaptive HTTP Streaming

Fast Multi-Rate Encoding for Adaptive HTTP Streaming

Data Compression Conference 2020, March 24 – 27, Cliff Lodge, Snowbird, UT

[PDF] (coming soon)

Hadi Amirpour, Ekrem Çetinkaya (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Bitmovin), and Mohammad Ghanbari (University of Tehran, University of Essex)

Abstract: Adaptive HTTP streaming is the preferred method to deliver multimedia content on the internet. It provides multiple representations of the same content in different qualities (i.e., bit-rates and resolutions) and allows the client to request segments from the available representations in a dynamic, adaptive way depending on its context. The growing number of representations in adaptive HTTP streaming makes encoding of one video segment at different representations a challenging task in terms of encoding time-complexity. In this paper, information of both the highest and lowest quality representations are used to limit Rate-Distortion Optimization (RDO) for each Coding Unit Tree (CTU) in High Efficiency Video Coding. Our proposed method first encodes the highest quality representation and consequently uses it to encode the lowest quality representation. In particular, the block structure and the selected reference frame of both the highest and lowest quality representations are then used to predict and shorten the RDO process of each CTU for intermediate quality representations. Our proposed method introduces a delay of two CTUs thanks to employing parallel processing techniques. Experimental results show a significant reduction in time-complexity over the reference software (38%) and state-of-the-art (10%) is achieved while quality degradation is negligible.

Keywords:  HTTP adaptive streaming, Multi-rate encoding, HEVC, Fast block partitioning

MPEG news: a report from the 128th meeting, Geneva, Switzerland

The original blog post can be found at the Bitmovin Techblog and has been modified/updated here to focus on and highlight research aspects. Additionally, this version of the blog post will be also posted at ACM SIGMM Records.

MPEG News Archive

The 128th MPEG meeting concluded on October 11, 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland with the following topics:

• Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding (LCEVC) Promoted to Committee Draft
• 2nd Edition of Omnidirectional Media Format (OMAF) has reached the first milestone
• Genomic Information Representation – Part 4 Reference Software and Part 5 Conformance Promoted to Draft International Standard

The corresponding press release of the 128th MPEG meeting can be found here: https://mpeg.chiariglione.org/meetings/128.

In this report we will focus on video coding aspects (i.e., LCEVC) and immersive media applications (i.e., OMAF). At the end, we will provide an update related to adaptive streaming (i.e., DASH and CMAF).

Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding

Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding (LCEVC) has been promoted to committee draft (CD) which is the first milestone in the ISO/IEC standardization process. LCEVC is part two of MPEG-5 or ISO/IEC 23094-2 if you prefer the always easy-to-remember ISO codes. We introduced MPEG-5 already in previous posts and LCEVC is about a standardized video coding solution that leverages other video codecs in a manner that improves video compression efficiency while maintaining or lowering the overall encoding and decoding complexity.

The LCEVC standard uses a lightweight video codec to add up to two layers of encoded residuals. The aim of these layers is correcting artefacts produced by the base video codec and adding detail and sharpness for the final output video.

The target of this standard comprises software or hardware codecs with extra processing capabilities, e.g., mobile devices, set top boxes (STBs), and personal computer based decoders. Additional benefits are the reduction in implementation complexity or a corresponding expansion in spatial resolution.

LCEVC is based on existing codecs which allows for backwards-compatibility with existing deployments. Supporting LCEVC enables “softwareized” video coding allowing for release and deployment options known from software-based solutions which are well understood by software companies and, thus, opens new opportunities in improving and optimizing video-based services and applications.

Research aspects: in video coding, research efforts are mainly related to coding efficiency and complexity (as usual). However, as MPEG-5 basically adds a software layer on top of what is typically implemented in hardware, all kind of aspects related to software engineering could become an active area of research.

Omnidirectional Media Format

The scope of the Omnidirectional Media Format (OMAF) is about 360° video, images, audio and associated timed text and specifies (i) a coordinate system, (ii) projection and rectangular region-wise packing methods, (iii) storage of omnidirectional media and the associated metadata using ISOBMFF, (iv) encapsulation, signaling and streaming of omnidirectional media in DASH and MMT, and (v) media profiles and presentation profiles.

At this meeting, the second edition of OMAF (ISO/IEC 23090-2) has been promoted to committee draft (CD) which includes

• support of improved overlay of graphics or textual data on top of video,
• efficient signaling of videos structured in multiple sub parts,
• enabling more than one viewpoint, and
• new profiles supporting dynamic bitstream generation according to the viewport.

As for the first edition, OMAF includes encapsulation and signaling in ISOBMFF as well as streaming of omnidirectional media (DASH and MMT). It will reach its final milestone by the end of 2020.

360° video is certainly a vital use case towards a fully immersive media experience. Devices to capture and consume such content are becoming increasingly available and will probably contribute to the dissemination of this type of content. However, it is also understood that the complexity increases significantly, specifically with respect to large-scale, scalable deployments due to increased content volume/complexity, timing constraints (latency), and quality of experience issues.

Research aspects: understanding the increased complexity of 360° video or immersive media in general is certainly an important aspect to be addressed towards enabling applications and services in this domain. We may even start thinking that 360° video actually works (e.g., it's possible to capture, upload to YouTube and consume it on many devices) but the devil is in the detail in order to handle this complexity in an efficient way to enable seamless and high quality of experience.

DASH and CMAF

The 4th edition of DASH (ISO/IEC 23009-1) will be published soon and MPEG is currently working towards a first amendment which will be about (i) CMAF support and (ii) event processing model. An overview of all DASH standards is depicted in the figure below, notably part one of MPEG-DASH referred to as media presentation description and segment formats.

The 2nd edition of the CMAF standard (ISO/IEC 23000-19) will become available very soon and MPEG is currently reviewing additional tools in the so-called technologies under considerations document as well as conducting various explorations. A working draft for additional media profiles is also under preparation.

Research aspects: with CMAF, low-latency supported is added to DASH-like applications and services. However, the implementation specifics are actually not defined in the standard and subject to competition (e.g., here). Interestingly, the Bitmovin video developer reports from both 2018 and 2019 highlight the need for low-latency solutions in this domain.

At the ACM Multimedia Conference 2019 in Nice, France I gave a tutorial entitled “A Journey towards Fully Immersive Media Access” which includes updates related to DASH and CMAF. The slides are available here.

Outlook 2020

Finally, let me try giving an outlook for 2020, not so much content-wise but events planned for 2020 that are highly relevant for this column:

• MPEG129, Jan 13-17, 2020, Brussels, Belgium
• DCC 2020, Mar 24-27, 2020, Snowbird, UT, USA
• MPEG130, Apr 20-24, 2020, Alpbach, Austria
• NAB 2020, Apr 08-22, Las Vegas, NV, USA
• MIPR 2020, Apr 09-10, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
• ICASSP 2020, May 4-8, 2020, Barcelona, Spain
• QoMEX 2020, May 26-28, 2020, Athlone, Ireland
• MMSys 2020, Jun 8-11, 2020, Istanbul, Turkey
• IMX 2020, June 17-19, 2020, Barcelona, Spain
• IVMSP 2020, June 23-26, 2020, Nafplio, Greece
• MPEG131, Jun 29 - Jul 3, 2020, Geneva, Switzerland
• NetSoft, QoE Mgmt Workshop, Jun 29 - Jul 3, 2020, Ghent, Belgium
• ICME 2020, Jul 6-10, London, UK
• ATHENA summer school, Jul 13-17, Klagenfurt, Austria

... and many more!

ACMMM'19: Docker-Based Evaluation Framework for Video Streaming QoE in Broadband Networks

Docker-Based Evaluation Framework for Video Streaming QoE in Broadband Networks

(Demo Paper)

https://www.acmmm.org/2019/

[PDF]

Cise Midoglu (Simula), Anatoliy Zabrovskiy (AAU), Özgü Alay (Simula), Daniel Hölbling-Inzko (Bitmovin), Carsten Griwodz (Univ. of Oslo), Christian Timmerer (AAU/Bitmovin)

Abstract: Video streaming is one of the top traffic contributors in the Internet and a frequent research subject. It is expected that streaming traffic will grow 4-fold for video globally and 9-fold for mobile video between 2017 and 2022. In this paper, we present an automatized measurement framework for evaluating video streaming QoE in operational broadband networks, using headless streaming with a Docker-based client, and a server-side implementation allowing for the use of multiple video players and adaptation algorithms. Our framework allows for integration with the MONROE testbed and Bitmovin Analytics, which bring on the possibility to conduct large-scale measurements in different networks, including mobility scenarios, and monitor different parameters in the application, transport, network, and physical layers in real-time.

Keywords: adaptive streaming, network measurements, OTT video analytics, QoE

Docker-Based Evaluation Framework for Video Streaming QoE in Broadband Networks from Christian Timmerer

MPEG news: a report from the 127th meeting, Gothenburg, Sweden

The original blog post can be found at the Bitmovin Techblog and has been modified/updated here to focus on and highlight research aspects. Additionally, this version of the blog post will be also posted at ACM SIGMM Records.

MPEG News Archive

Plenary of the 127th MPEG Meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The 126th MPEG meeting concluded on March 29, 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland with the following topics:

• Versatile Video Coding (VVC) enters formal approval stage, experts predict 35-60% improvement over HEVC
• Essential Video Coding (EVC) promoted to Committee Draft
• Common Media Application Format (CMAF) 2nd edition promoted to Final Draft International Standard
• Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) 4th edition promoted to Final Draft International Standard
• Carriage of Point Cloud Data Progresses to Committee Draft
• JPEG XS carriage in MPEG-2 TS promoted to Final Draft Amendment of ISO/IEC 13818-1 7th edition
• Genomic information representation – WG11 issues a joint call for proposals on genomic annotations in conjunction with ISO TC 276/WG 5
• ISO/IEC 23005 (MPEG-V) 4th Edition – WG11 promotes the Fourth edition of two parts of “Media Context and Control” to the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) stage

The corresponding press release of the 127th MPEG meeting can be found here: https://mpeg.chiariglione.org/meetings/127

Versatile Video Coding (VVC)

The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is pleased to announce that Versatile Video Coding (VVC) progresses to Committee Draft, experts predict 35-60% improvement over HEVC.

The development of the next major generation of video coding standard has achieved excellent progress, such that MPEG has approved the Committee Draft (CD, i.e., the text for formal balloting in the ISO/IEC approval process).

The new VVC standard will be applicable to a very broad range of applications and it will also provide additional functionalities. VVC will provide a substantial improvement in coding efficiency relative to existing standards. The improvement in coding efficiency is expected to be quite substantial – e.g., in the range of 35–60% bit rate reduction relative to HEVC although it has not yet been formally measured. Relative to HEVC means for equivalent subjective video quality at picture resolutions such as 1080p HD or 4K or 8K UHD, either for standard dynamic range video or high dynamic range and wide color gamut content for levels of quality appropriate for use in consumer distribution services. The focus during the development of the standard has primarily been on 10-bit 4:2:0 content, and 4:4:4 chroma format will also be supported.

The VVC standard is being developed in the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET), a group established jointly by MPEG and the Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) of ITU-T Study Group 16. In addition to a text specification, the project also includes the development of reference software, a conformance testing suite, and a new standard ISO/IEC 23002-7 specifying supplemental enhancement information messages for coded video bitstreams. The approval process for ISO/IEC 23002-7 has also begun, with the issuance of a CD consideration ballot.

Research aspects: VVC represents the next generation video codec to be deployed in 2020+ and basically the same research aspects apply as for previous generations, i.e., coding efficiency, performance/complexity, and objective/subjective evaluation. Luckily, JVET documents are freely available including the actual standard (committee draft), software (and its description), and common test conditions. Thus, researcher utilizing these resources are able to conduct reproducible research when contributing their findings and code improvements back to the community at large. 

Essential Video Coding (EVC)

MPEG-5 Essential Video Coding (EVC) promoted to Committee Draft

Interestingly, at the same meeting as VVC, MPEG promoted MPEG-5 Essential Video Coding (EVC) to Committee Draft (CD). The goal of MPEG-5 EVC is to provide a standardized video coding solution to address business needs in some use cases, such as video streaming, where existing ISO video coding standards have not been as widely adopted as might be expected from their purely technical characteristics.

The MPEG-5 EVC standards includes a baseline profile that contains only technologies that are over 20 years old or are otherwise expected to be royalty-free. Additionally, a main profile adds a small number of additional tools, each providing significant performance gain. All main profile tools are capable of being individually switched off or individually switched over to a corresponding baseline tool. Organizations making proposals for the main profile have agreed to publish applicable licensing terms within two years of FDIS stage, either individually or as part of a patent pool.

Research aspects: Similar research aspects can be described for EVC and from a software engineering perspective it could be also interesting to further investigate this switching mechanism of individual tools or/and fall back option to baseline tools. Naturally, a comparison with next generation codecs such as VVC is interesting per se. The licensing aspects itself are probably interesting for other disciplines but that is another story...

Common Media Application Format (CMAF)

MPEG ratified the 2nd edition of the Common Media Application Format (CMAF)

The Common Media Application Format (CMAF) enables efficient encoding, storage, and delivery of digital media content (incl. audio, video, subtitles among others), which is key to scaling operations to support the rapid growth of video streaming over the internet. The CMAF standard is the result of widespread industry adoption of an application of MPEG technologies for adaptive video streaming over the Internet, and widespread industry participation in the MPEG process to standardize best practices within CMAF.

The 2nd edition of CMAF adds support for a number of specifications that were a result of significant industry interest. Those include

• Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) multi-channel;
• MPEG-H 3D Audio;
• MPEG-D Unified Speech and Audio Coding (USAC);
• Scalable High Efficiency Video Coding (SHVC);
• IMSC 1.1 (Timed Text Markup Language Profiles for Internet Media Subtitles and Captions); and
• additional HEVC video CMAF profiles and brands.

This edition also introduces CMAF supplemental data handling as well as new structural brands for CMAF that reflects the common practice of the significant deployment of CMAF in industry. Companies adopting CMAF technology will find the specifications introduced in the 2nd Edition particularly useful for further adoption and proliferation of CMAF in the market.

Research aspects: see below (DASH).

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH)

MPEG approves the 4th edition of Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH)

The 4th edition of MPEG-DASH comprises the following features:

service description that is intended by the service provider on how the service is expected to be consumed;

• a method to indicate the times corresponding to the production of associated media;
• a mechanism to signal DASH profiles and features, employed codec and format profiles; and
• supported protection schemes present in the Media Presentation Description (MPD).

It is expected that this edition will be published later this year. 

Research aspects: CMAF 2nd and DASH 4th edition come along with a rich feature set enabling a plethora of use cases. The underlying principles are still the same and research issues arise from updated application and service requirements with respect to content complexity, time aspects (mainly delay/latency), and quality of experience (QoE). The DASH-IF awards the excellence in DASH award at the ACM Multimedia Systems conference and an overview about its academic efforts can be found here. For example, see here our recent research on bandwidth prediction in low-latency chunked streaming. Additionally, our tutorial at ACM Multimedia 2019 about a journey towards fully immersive media access reviews state of the art in this area and how it could be extended enabling 6DoF HAS services through point cloud compression.

Carriage of Point Cloud Data

MPEG progresses the Carriage of Point Cloud Data to Committee Draft

At its 127th meeting, MPEG has promoted the carriage of point cloud data to the Committee Draft stage, the first milestone of ISO standard development process. This standard is the first one introducing the support of volumetric media in the industry-famous ISO base media file format family of standards.

This standard supports the carriage of point cloud data comprising individually encoded video bitstreams within multiple file format tracks in order to support the intrinsic nature of the video-based point cloud compression (V-PCC). Additionally, it also allows the carriage of point cloud data in one file format track for applications requiring multiplexed content (i.e., the video bitstream of multiple components is interleaved into one bitstream).

This standard is expected to support efficient access and delivery of some portions of a point cloud object considering that in many cases that entire point cloud object may not be visible by the user depending on the viewing direction or location of the point cloud object relative to other objects. It is currently expected that the standard will reach its final milestone by the end of 2020.

Research aspects: MPEG's Point Cloud Compression (PCC) comes in two flavors, video- and geometric-based but still requires to be packaged into file and delivery formats. MPEG's choice here is the ISO base media file format and the efficient carriage of point cloud data is characterized by both functionality (i.e., enabling the required used cases) and performance (such as low overhead).

MPEG 2 Systems/Transport Stream

JPEG XS carriage in MPEG-2 TS promoted to Final Draft Amendment of ISO/IEC 13818-1 7th edition

At its 127th meeting, WG11 (MPEG) has extended ISO/IEC 13818-1 (MPEG-2 Systems) – in collaboration with WG1 (JPEG) – to support ISO/IEC 21122 (JPEG XS) in order to support industries using still image compression technologies for broadcasting infrastructures. The specification defines a JPEG XS elementary stream header and specifies how the JPEG XS video access unit (specified in ISO/IEC 21122-1) is put into a Packetized Elementary Stream (PES). Additionally, the specification also defines how the System Target Decoder (STD) model can be extended to support JPEG XS video elementary streams.

Genomic information representation

WG11 issues a joint call for proposals on genomic annotations in conjunction with ISO TC 276/WG 5

The introduction of high-throughput DNA sequencing has led to the generation of large quantities of genomic sequencing data that have to be stored, transferred and analyzed. So far WG 11 (MPEG) and ISO TC 276/WG 5 have addressed the representation, compression and transport of genome sequencing data by developing the ISO/IEC 23092 standard series also known as MPEG-G. They provide a file and transport format, compression technology, metadata specifications, protection support, and standard APIs for the access of sequencing data in the native compressed format.

An important element in the effective usage of sequencing data is the association of the data with the results of the analysis and annotations that are generated by processing pipelines and analysts. At the moment such association happens as a separate step, standard and effective ways of linking data and meta information derived from sequencing data are not available.

At its 127th meeting, MPEG and ISO TC 276/WG 5 issued a joint Call for Proposals (CfP) addressing the solution of such problem. The call seeks submissions of technologies that can provide efficient representation and compression solutions for the processing of genomic annotation data.

Companies and organizations are invited to submit proposals in response to this call. Responses are expected to be submitted by the 8th January 2020 and will be evaluated during the 129th WG 11 (MPEG) meeting. Detailed information, including how to respond to the call for proposals, the requirements that have to be considered, and the test data to be used, is reported in the documents N18648, N18647, and N18649 available at the 127th meeting website (http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/meetings/127). For any further question about the call, test conditions, required software or test sequences please contact: Joern Ostermann, MPEG Requirements Group Chair (ostermann@tnt.uni-hannover.de) or Martin Golebiewski, Convenor ISO TC 276/WG 5 (martin.golebiewski@h-its.org).

ISO/IEC 23005 (MPEG-V) 4th Edition

WG11 promotes the Fourth edition of two parts of “Media Context and Control” to the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) stage

At its 127th meeting, WG11 (MPEG) promoted the 4th edition of two parts of ISO/IEC 23005 (MPEG-V; Media Context and Control) standards to the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS). The new edition of ISO/IEC 23005-1 (architecture) enables ten new use cases, which can be grouped into four categories: 3D printing, olfactory information in virtual worlds, virtual panoramic vision in car, and adaptive sound handling. The new edition of ISO/IEC 23005-7 (conformance and reference software) is updated to reflect the changes made by the introduction of new tools defined in other parts of ISO/IEC 23005. More information on MPEG-V and its parts 1-7 can be found at https://mpeg.chiariglione.org/standards/mpeg-v.

Finally, the unofficial highlight of the 127th MPEG meeting we certainly found while scanning the scene in Gothenburg on Tuesday night...