Author: leonardo

Yan Ye

  1. Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
    Yes and yes (for almost 15 years)
  2. What do you think makes MPEG special?
    The list is probably incomplete but here it goes: 1) MPEG can draw a large number of people from different parts of the video ecosystem and provide an extremely effective platform – thanks to an effective and well managed process (at least most of the time) – for people to collaborate technically; 2) generation after generation, MPEG has always produced the most premium quality video codec standards; 3) MPEG is always able to keep up with change of industry and adapt quickly; 4) MPEG is willing to take on all sorts of new things.
    A further note on #4, I don’t necessarily agree with all these new initiatives, but the question is what makes MPEG special, so I threw it in.
  3. What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
    Undoubtedly in my mind, the video codec standards (you can call it biased opinion of course).
  4. Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
    I think so, sometimes too good a conduit, by which I mean some research just stays as research for too long in MPEG. I give MPEG credit for having a much more healthy mix of industry people vs. academic people. With all due respect for the academic folks, I note that some of them do research in MPEG for a very long time.
  5. Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
    largely positive. I can’t say I agree with everything that happens there, but isn’t that just part of life?
  6. Are you satisfied with MPEG standards?
    generally yes. But the answer in #5 applies here too.
  7. Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
    I think this is a tough one given there are so many of them, and quite a diverse set. Hard to make a blanket statement, because a lot of them I haven’t read or used. For the ones that I have read/used, i.e., the video codec standards and a bit of the systems standards, the answer is yes.
  8. What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
    I think we should think carefully where we are going and how we want to get there. Let me just call the video codec standards MPEG’s crown jewels. While MPEG expands into new territories and greener pastures, how can we make sure we preserve the crown jewels and help them shine even more? How can we make sure to continue to listen the industry at large and hear the consensus?
    A further note: I suspect that I didn’t answer the question directly. However, what I said is what comes to my mind when “MPEG” and “future” come in one sentence.

Yuval Fisher

  1. Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
    While I haven’t participated in the MPEG process for some years, I am happy and proud to have been deeply involved in the standardization process for MPEG-4, eventually becoming one of the MPEG-4 systems specification editors.
  2. What do you think makes MPEG special?
    MPEG is a rare coordination of industry, academia and interested individuals who work jointly – often with slightly different interests – but coordinated to produce broad agreement that yield standards, without which, adoption of video (and many related areas) would not have been as successful.
  3. What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
    MPEG-2, MPEG-4, HEVC, DASH… all have been widely deployed.
  4. Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
    I think MPEG can be a conduit for research, but industry profit motive makes that complicated. Arguably, research should focus on results, not profit. I think that MPEG is definitely a driver for research,  however, as participants push to drive innovation into emerging specifications.
  5. Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
    My MPEG experience was a pleasant learning experience. While I’m happy to have inserted some of my ideas into some of the specifications, in hindsight, I would have done things somewhat differently. For myself, the drive to be efficient, clever, and innovative sometimes outweighed the value of simplicity and clarity.
  6. Are you satisfied with MPEG standards?
    There’s no doubt that many MPEG standards are wildly successful, and this – of course – is satisfying. My opinion is that there are areas where the process could improve.
    For example, while IP is contributed under RAND conditions, there is a drive for companies to include any and all IP into the specification in order to participate in whatever IPR patent pools will be created. I’m not sure if there is (or if it is even possible to have) a force to counter that drive.
    Another example is sprawl – the specs are large. That’s partially a result of the broad problems the specifications address, but also a consequence of the drive for inclusion and consensus. Everyone tends to allow everyone’s ideas to flow in.
    Both of these problem are difficult to address, and maybe they are intractable.
  7. Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
    The MPEG process has been successful, but whether it’s “right” depends on many forces. To follow the examples above, it can be argued that the licensing of MPEG technology has created similar and parallel problems that fragment the market. It’s not as bad as having separate technologies – the problem MPEG tries to solve – but almost. And per the second example above, many MPEG specifications require subsequent industry fora that profile the specification and create best practices documents.
  8. What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
    Perhaps there is a way to solve both problem – technology and adoption – as part of the MPEG process?

Masayuki Tanimoto

  1. Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
    Yes
  2. What do you think makes MPEG special?
    Leadership of Convener and a large group of experts who have various background and have been participating MPEG for long
  3. What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
    Success of MPEG-2
  4. Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
    MPEG can provide research topics and a place of detailed discussion to researchers. However, MPEG should make efforts to find and invite new researchers who have important future technology.
  5. Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
    I proposed FTV to MPEG in 2001. I reported a new type of visual media and new technology. They are very different from conventional ones. MPEG regarded they were challenging and started discussion on FTV and ray-space. Since then, MPEG has been developing standards on FTV in the first phase, second phase and current third phase. I’m very grateful for it.
  6. Are you satisfied with MPEG standards?
  7. Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
  8. What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
    MPEG finds a seed of important future technology and grows it.

Pankaj Topiwala

  1. Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
    I have been an MPEG member now for nearly 20 years (started in May, 2000, Geneva).
  2. What do you think makes MPEG special?
    There is little question MPEG has had a large impact on multimedia storage and transmission.
  3. What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
    For me, working in video, I see the impact in video storage and communications to be of the largest impact, from VCDs to DVDs, Blu-Ray, digital TV, and now streaming technologies.
  4. Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
    MPEG has been a great conduit for applied research in multimedia and related fields, and the state of the art has been greatly advanced.
  5. Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
    This is a large question. I’ll focus on video. I have found the collaboration with ITU to be the most fruitful in terms of producing technologies of wide impact. No collaboration is easy, but I have found that the marketplace is most receptive to our joint standards.
  6. Are you satisfied with MPEG standards? and
  7. Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
    Since we have 500+ participants, each with somewhat different agendas, such a large group is not easy to manage. And we have produced many standards, not all addressing meaningful market needs. In video, I believe, other than MPEG-4 video, we have produced excellent standards, right for the market.
  8. What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
    This is I believe the most important question. We are no longer driven by technology progress alone, but rather by license-ability. We face a challenge from AOM that we must take seriously. And we have divisions within our contributing companies in terms of licensing that seems to have weakened the prospects for HEVC, and therefore also VVC.  Meanwhile, AOM may face legal challenges, and a legal defense fund has been formed. I realize in response, we have also initiated MPEG-5, with an early release date. It is too early to tell if that will prove to be a valuable second front, or a distraction from our VVC work. Historically, if we had done this earlier, I would have said it was a mistake. In the present era, there are no certainties.  Since a large group of patent holders, as in HEVC, seem to have difficulties settling on licensing terms, it does make sense to create conditions which may allow a smaller, perhaps more committed set of patent holders, that may produce workable licensing terms.  How to manage that with our on-going work with VVC, and the delicate relationship with ITU, is a challenge.  This work area was not jointly conceived, it has apparently now become a source of some distrust and irritation rather than collaboration. That aspect will eventually have an effect in the marketplace, as we will send mixed signals.
    In short, I see many challenges we face. The marketplace wants technologies which we know how to create. But our structure (as a standardization group, but not a licensing group) does not allow us to create all of the conditions for successful acceptance in the marketplace. This has created the conditions for other groups to step in. I’m not sure how to fix this. We have tried to create video standards that are royalty-free; but I do not believe we have the right structure to do so. Our response has been to create a structure in which very few companies can participate in the creation of a standard, in the hope that a smaller number of IP holders will lead to quicker and more acceptable licensing terms. While that may work, it is also partly against our spirit of collaborative design.
    Here is one, out-of-the-box idea, which I put forward mainly to expand our thinking. We cannot create leading-edge standards in video that are truly royalty-free, in my opinion. (AV1 is encumbered by many patents, but is being offered in a rather restrictive licensing structure, and there is a legal defense fund.) We need a way to create a standard that is not free, but is assured to have a limited, acceptable fee. If this were possible, then we could have the conditions that a collaborative design. Such a structure may be open to legal challenges of price-fixing, and anti-trust. The reality is that we are actually working to increase competition, and fair value for consumers, and not against their interests. So I am personally of the opinion that it is morally justifiable. However, the legal challenges are also quite serious, and how to get around those, even if working in the public interest, would not be easy.

Spencer Cheng

  1. Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
    Yes
  2. What do you think makes MPEG special?
    Reasonable balance between competition and co-operation.
  3. What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
    Standards which enabled a whole industry. Between the Walkman to a smartphone is a huge leap in technology.
  4. Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
    Too many competing corporate interests to “do” research. Reasonable conduit to publicize research.
  5. Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
    I tell people I have a love/hate relationship. I hate the jet lag but love the opportunity to work with people who I would never meet otherwise.
  6. Are you satisfied with MPEG standards?
    Nothing is ever perfect but MPEG standards are in general good enough.
  7. Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
    Other times, they seem rather esoteric.
  8. What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
    Domain specific compression. MPEG-G might be the first.

 

Andy Finney

  1. Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
    No, although the BBC might have been when I was working for them.
  2. What do you think makes MPEG special?
    The widespread adoption of the technologies during the key development of digital audio-visual media. I believe this is in no small measure down to MPEG’s efforts and, as far as I know, MPEG’s ability to get the then-dominant Japanese manufacturers enthused.
  3. What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
    I think the most important impact lies in almost all television around the world using either MPEG2 or MPEG4 encoding. This kind of compatibility was never achieved in the analogue field.
  4. Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
    Now here I am somewhat removed from the field so I can’t comment. However, MPEG certainly was a good research vehicle in the past.
  5. Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
    It introduced me to a lot of fascinating people and enabled me and my colleagues to make more exciting interactive projects in the digital domain.
  6. Are you happy with MPEG standards?
    I was disappointed that the object-oriented (OO) aspects of MPEG4 seem to be forgotten and I’m not sure whether the current work on OO Broadcasting builds on them.
  7. Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
    They always were so I see no reason for that not to continue.
  8. What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
    Involvement in OO broadcasting (audio and video and ‘volumetric’) and a key role on VR and AR.

Ajay Luthra

  1. Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
    Yes, since early 1990s
  2. What do you think makes MPEG special?
    Its creativity, innovations, sense of urgency to produce great standards in timely fashion and its sensitivity to the needs of the industries. And, its convener with forceful and unwavering commitment to the founding principles of MPEG: developing standards in collaborative but at the same time competitive way, and developing standards that serve the needs of the industries in a timely fashion.
  3. What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
    It has touched and impacted everyone’s life on the planet. It has revolutionized how people communicate and how digital media is created, stored and distributed. Although it started with initial focus on the entertainment industry but now its impact can be seen on other industries, like education, health, telecommunication, security etc as well – any industry that uses digital media has been profoundly impacted by MPEG standards. The concept of having standardized algorithmic representation of the multi media that can be interoperable world wide across the boundaries of the nations, industries, companies and the product lines and of having the standard that can be implemented in such a cost-effective way that it can become ubiquitous, was unthinkable when MPEG was born. MPEG made that happen.
  4. Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
    MPEG is an excellent place to interact with world leading researchers, thinkers and innovators. Not only the contributions from various experts generate exciting and thought-provoking discussions but the hall way discussions also produce new great ideas.
  5. Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
    MPEG experience has been very unique. Participants are not only the best of the best, not only on the cutting edge of the technologies, they are also very hard working as well. Where else will one find the meetings lasting for 10 days straight, including weekends, and many times the meetings lasting in the wee hours of the night. One of my memorable experience in this arena was during the development of AVC standard where one day the meeting closed around 4 am just to start again at 8 am. I and my co-chairs went to hotel to take shower and did not dare to sit on the bed as then we may not get up in time for the start of the meeting :). And, at 8:00 am when the meeting restarted the room was full! Every time it was thought that we had reached the edges and limits of the possibilities, MPEG leaped beyond and made possible that was thought to be impossible only a few years earlier. Dedication and hard work of so many world leading experts has allowed MPEG to break one barrier after another.
  6. Are you happy with MPEG standards?
    Extremely happy. They have not only been critical in improving and influencing people’s lives, producing great standards that have become ubiquitous worldwide, but have also been critical in giving participating experts opportunities to grow in multiple directions, ranging from understanding and developing new technologies, to managing diverse groups of people, to having patience to understand opposing views (at the same time to be able to stand for your own) to contributing to the standards that made such deep and fundamental impacts.
  7. Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
    They are great choice. The collaborative and at the same time competitive nature and methodology of the standard development with hundreds of experts critically reviewing every aspect of the standard ensures that they are state of the art, implementable and interoperable standards with richness of innovations.
  8. What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
    – To continue to be true to its founding principles of developing standards in collaborative but at the same time competitive way,
    – To continue to serve the needs of the industries in appropriate and timely fashion,
    – To continue to broaden its horizon and scope from multimedia-centric focus to other areas that need data compression and associated standards.

Bill Zou

  1. Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
    Yes
  2. What do you think makes MPEG special?
    Participating in MPEG and involving with the MPEG standards development is one of the highlights of my professional career.
  3. What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
    The MPEG standards played a key role for the transformation from analog to digital world and provided the foundation for today’s CE industry and creating millions of products used by billions of people daily.
  4. Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
    MPEG’s standards development processes encourage and facilitate R&D in media and communications fields in the past 30 years.
  5. Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
    The participation in MPEG gave me the opportunity working with the top experts in their fields from all over the world and it has been a most rewarding experience both professionally and personally.
  6. Are you satisfied with MPEG standards?
    Looking back from my 30 years career in the industry and seeing how people enjoy the services and products made available by the MPEG standards I am happy for being involving with the MPEG standards development and the MPEG community.
  7. Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
    As an active participant of media technology standards development in the past 30 years I have seen the huge success of adopting MPEG specs in the media standards development and applications/product development.
  8. What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
    Over 30 years MPEG has established its reputation and developed a robust process of standards development. The merit and competitive based technology selection process results in the best of the best winning technologies for the MPEG standards. I believe that MPEG will continue to follow its past success in developing new standards. It is interesting to see the competitive landscape of patent pools and licensing of MPEG technologies. The past success of MPEG patent pools and licensing programs did encourage the active participation of MPEG standards development and resulted in more companies invested and more IPs have been included in the standards. It seems that the management of MPEG patent pools and technology licensing (aka the cost of implementing MPEG technologies) will be an important factor impacting how future MPEG standards development and their success.

 

 

Weijia Zhu

  1. Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
    I have been an MPEG member since 2017. I focus on MPEG video coding standards in the past.
  2. What do you think makes MPEG special?
    The MPEG meeting is held every three months and hundreds of experts from various company join together to develop MPEG standards.
  3. What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
    The MPEG significantly improves the user experiences on services related to videos and also facilitate the progress of other related fields
  4. Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
    The MPEG group develops the most cutting-edge technologies which provide the best guidance for the researchers. When I was a Ph.D candidate, I was involved in the development of HEVC and I was confused what should I do on video coding field. So I read some MPEG proposals, these high-quality proposals really broadened my vision and I knew what other top experts were doing and also learned from those proposal what is the most promising direction in video coding which is very helpful for my Ph.D experience.
  5. Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
    I learned a lot from the MPEG. My major is computer science during my PhD so I didn’t have much experience on hardware codec. But I learned a lot about that from the MPEG meetings. I also learned the presentation skill from the other MPEG experts.
  6. Are you satisfied with MPEG standards?
    I think MPEG did very well and became better now.
  7. Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
    MPEG is very good however the competitors also become stronger than before. So it hard to say whether MPEG standards will be the right choice in the future.
  8. What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
    Continue the excellent work that MPEG is doing now.

Philippe Salembier

  1. Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
    Yes, I have been particularly involved between 1995 and 2001.
  2. What do you think makes MPEG special?
    It is a place where many people from the most relevant actors in multimedia are represented and try to generate consensus on key points of multimedia technology so that business can be developed and services deployed.
  3. What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
    I think the most important impact today is that MPEG is behind the vast majority of services involving video or digital audio.
  4. Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
    MPEG is a place where the most up to date technology is discussed, implemented, compared and tested. In itself, this dynamic is very useful to combine ideas, optimize and improve performances. It is also a place where missing technological elements necessary to support applications of interest to MPEG industrial members are identified. This role can guide researchers on some of their research objectives. Of course, the timing of MPEG is not appropriate for long term research but it can stimulate short term objectives. Moreover, because of its impact on the industry, research objectives related to MPEG activities may be financially supported by institutional or industrial research programs. In this sense, MPEG may have a significant impact on research.
  5. Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
    I have had several types of involvement with respect to MPEG including member of European projects targeting the submission of proposals for MPEG, participant to MPEG meeting and chair of one of the MPEG subgroups. All these roles were at the same time quite challenging and stimulating.
  6. Are you happy with MPEG standards?
    I think they have played and are playing an essential role in the multimedia industry and associated services.
  7. Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
    I think MPEG activity and its ability to provide interoperability is right and has to be pursued. However, it is difficult to say whether MPEG standards in general are the right choice. Some of them are more successful than others. Some of them turned out to be more useful than others. If I was involved in an industry, I will certainly seriously take into consideration MPEG standards relevant for my business.
  8. What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
    To continue the excellent and necessary work it is doing.