- Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
For almost 20 years I have been representing Philips Electronics in MPEG. - What do you think makes MPEG special?
MPEG is the focal point for the industry at large to establish generic (worldwide) standards on digital audiovisual coding. MPEG is special because, when relevant, MPEG can bring together the expertise required to achieve this goal. - What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
The most important impact of MPEG is on providing digital audiovisual content for consumers. For example, MPEG standards made possible the very successful market introduction of optical media: initially CD-video and DVD, followed by BluRay. Furthermore, there was major impact on the digital broadcast industry, in particular on Digital TV broadcast. Finally, MPEG has been very important for audiovisual content exchange on the internet using computers and mobile devices. - Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
MPEG provided a very effective platform for research on audiovisual coding. Joint research efforts were probably never so successful. From research perspective, MPEG has an excellent track record; the percentage of successful projects in MPEG is substantially higher than in typical company research environments. - Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
Working with MPEG friends from all involved industries widens your scope, as an MPEG standard needs not only to solve your own problems, but also those of other participants. To achieve common understanding of all relevant issues and working on a standard to address those, is highly enjoyable and rewarding. It’s a very nice mix of technical and political challenges. - Are you happy with MPEG standards?
An MPEG standard is often technically not the most optimum solution for one specific application, as typically compromises are needed to make the (generic) standard also suitable for other applications. However, the generic nature of MPEG standards proves essential for its success on the market place. - Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
Market driven MPEG standards are the right choice, but as in other research environments, there are also less market driven MPEG standards with insufficient industry support. - What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
Hopefully, MPEG continues to offer an effective joint (research) environment for developing audiovisual coding standards. The impact of MPEG as enabler of new features on the market place may become less critical, but new application area’s may offer further exciting challenges.
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