INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION FOR STANDARDISATION
ORGANISATION INTERNATIONALE DE NORMALISATION
ISO/IEC/JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11
CODING OF MOVING PICTURES AND AUDIO
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 N9333
October 2007 – Shenzhen, CN
Source: |
Convener of MPEG |
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Status: |
Approved by WG11 |
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Subject: |
MPEG Press Release |
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Date: |
2007 October 26 |
MPEG Completes Powerful Fixed-Point IDCT Standard
Shenzhen, CN – The 82nd MPEG meeting was held in Shenzhen, China from 22-26 October 2007.
Highlights of the 82nd Meeting
IDCT Standardization Completed and Associated Software Delivered
The 8x8 inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT) is a fundamental building block of video and still-image coding technology. Its implementation is required by the video formats specified in MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4; the JPEG still-image coding standard; and the ITU-T video coding standards H.261 and H.263. Following up on its standardization of conformance test metrics for IDCT precision testing (ISO/IEC 23002-1), MPEG has now completed further work to aid industry in implementing this fundamental technology.
In work completed at the 82nd meeting in Shenzhen, MPEG has now produced a single unified standard (ISO/IEC 23002-2) for a specific conforming fixed-point approximation of the ideal integer-output 8x8 IDCT. This design performs exceptionally well in objective accuracy, linearity, dynamic range, and "drift phenomenon" tests while minimizing computational resources. By standardizing a single fixed-point approximation of the 8x8 IDCT, MPEG has provided a powerful example to industry of a practical way to fully conform to MPEG's stringent video coding standard requirements with high precision quality. Moreover, MPEG has produced a solution that is free of implementation-specific "drift" among all encoders and decoders that embrace this important new standard. Adoption of this new standard by industry is entirely voluntary, as there have been no new normative references added to existing MPEG video standards. However, implementations that adopt the new standard will benefit from its exact specification of assured high-precision results that conform to a broad variety of video and image coding standards.
MPEG has also completed standardization of reference software (ISO/IEC 23002-1/FDAM 1) capable of performing extensive testing of IDCT approximation precision, as specified in ISO/IEC 23002-1. This software is now the gold standard for conformance certification testing of IDCT implementations.
MPEG Issues Call for Proposals on Unified Speech and Audio Coding
At the 82nd MPEG meeting WG11 issued a Call for Proposals on Unified Speech and Audio Coding. This Call is for technology that permits coding of signals having an arbitrary mix of speech and audio content, and that performs comparable to or better than the best coding technology that might be tailored specifically to coding of either speech or general audio content. The bitrates of greatest interest are 16 kb/s through 24 kb/s, although it is expected that a wider operating range will be tested in the course of developing the standard. Responses to the Call are due at the 85th MPEG meeting, July 2008. Additional information can be found on the MPEG contact website provided below.
New Reconfigurable Video Coding Capabilities Take Shape
With the achievement of Committee Draft (CD) status for decoder configuration description (ISO/IEC 23001-4), new capabilities have begun to take shape in MPEG's work on reconfigurable video coding (RVC). Together with the new video tool library (ISO/IEC 23002-4), which also reached CD status at the 82nd meeting, it will become possible to configure a video decoder by assembling component "toolkit" elements. From the development of such a toolkit and associated configuration descriptions, new combinations of video coding capabilities will become possible. RVC technology offers a unified framework approach that can be undertaken for support of a broad variety of video coding features in products, such as simultaneous support of multiple MPEG standards and other designs as well. Moreover, in addition to widening the variety of features supported in video coding applications, the development of this technology will pave the path toward development of new toolkit features with enhanced capabilities beyond those of today's technology.
MPEG Progresses Advanced Audio Coding – Enhanced Low Delay
At the 82nd MPEG meeting the MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding – Enhanced Low Delay standard progressed to FDAM status. This technology supports high-quality yet low delay coding of speech and music signals. Compressed signals have, with full audio bandwidth (e.g. 20 kHz) and encoding and decoding entails, no more than 32 ms of latency. It is expected that this technology will have wide application in Voice over IP, broadcasting equipment for live streaming, and super wideband mobile and fixed video and audio conferencing.
MPEG Extends Video Coding Standards for High-Capability Applications
By completing the definition of a new level 6 to the MPEG-4 visual Simple Profile (ISO/IEC 14496-2:2004/FDAM 4) and providing associated conformance tests (ISO/IEC 14496-4:2004/FDAM 28), MPEG has achieved a further extension of its video coding standards to add greater capabilities for the most demanding applications that require high fidelity and high picture resolutions. Further work is under way to continue to serve industry needs as application requirements move forward into supporting ever higher levels of video resolution and fidelity.
Other Notable Accomplishments of the 82nd Meeting
MPEG Assists Industry with Implementing MPEG-4 in Silicon
To assist industry with implementing MPEG-4 technology, MPEG has issued a new (3rd) edition of its reference hardware description for MPEG-4 (ISO/IEC 14496-9). This technical report will prove invaluable to enable low cost implementation of the powerful MPEG-4 technology suite in low-cost mass-market silicon products.
MPEG Pioneers Enablement of Free-Viewpoint Television Applications and Calls for Contributions
Free viewpoint TV (FTV) is a new and very broad type of audio-visual system that allows each user to view the real 3D space from different user viewpoints. In FTV, a user can set the viewpoint to an arbitrary location and direction, which can be static, change abruptly, or vary continuously within certain limits determined by the particular application. FTV can potentially offer high quality, real or virtual, viewpoint control with applications ranging from hand-held 3-D television to navigation through dynamic virtual worlds.
Toward support of these exciting new applications, MPEG has publicly released two key documents to provide more information to the community and seek contributions of test material for standardization development. Document N9466 provides information about FTV applications and requirements, and document N9468 requests contributions of FTV test material. These documents, which can be found on the MPEG site listed below, will help move industry forward toward an exciting new domain of fully-interoperable standards-based FTV.
3D Graphics Tools Connect to XML in new MPEG-4 Standard
MPEG completed the first stage of standardizing the 3D Graphics Compression Model by releasing a Committee Draft (ISO/IEC CD 14496-25 3D GCM) of the standard. This specifies a generic architecture model able to connect compression tools developed by MPEG for 3D graphics primitives to any XML based representation of such primitives. In addition, the standard instantiates this model for three standards: XMT (ISO/IEC 14496-11), COLLADA (specified by Khronos Group), and X3D (ISO/IEC 19775:2004) by specifying the complete set of correspondences between the MPEG-4 compression tools and elements of these three standards. The new content obtained by such combination is packaged into an ISO file format that is able to carry in a lossless manner the data structure expressed in XML while reducing the size of the original file by 50:1 compression ratio and supporting geometry, texture and animation streaming. MPEG-4 for 3D Graphics becomes a transparent layer, optimally designed for storage and transmission, and independent of production and consumption conditions.
Contact MPEG
Digging Deeper Once Again
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 do not hesitate to request it as well. You can start your MPEG adventure at: http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/mpeg-tech.htm
Future MPEG meetings are planned as follows:
No. 83, Antalya, TR 14-18 January, 2008
No. 84, Archamps, FR, 28 April to 02 May, 2008
No. 85, Hannover, DE, 21-25 July, 2008
For further information about MPEG, please contact:
Dr. Leonardo Chiariglione (Convener of MPEG, Italy)
Via Borgionera, 103
10040 Villar Dora (TO), Italy
Tel +39 011 935 04 61
Email: mailto:leonardo@chiariglione.org
or
Arianne T. Hinds
Ricoh | IBM InfoPrint Solutions Company
6300 Diagonal Highway, MS 04M
Boulder, CO 80301, USA
Tel +1 303 924 6984
Email: arianne@us.ibm.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 Call 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 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 non-MPEG members.
Journalists that wish to receive MPEG Press Releases by email can contact Arianne Hinds using the contact information provided above.