- Are you or have you been an MPEG member?
We are active MPEG members, and have been so for 20+ years. - What do you think makes MPEG special?
MPEG has achieved broad support in the industry because of the technology superiority of its standards and the wide array of solutions offered to the marketplace. Through its commitment to openness and balance, MPEG has attracted stakeholders and developers from a variety of industries and with a variety of business models. With a renewed effort to bring the industry together through consensus, openness and balance have guaranteed the success of MPEG, and should remain the pillars for standards development in the years to come. - What do you think is the most important MPEG impact?
Despite the sometimes inevitable difference of opinions among MPEG members, MPEG has stricken a balance that has achieved wide adoption and fair return to innovators. In particular, “moving forward together as a group” has been a guiding principle in the past. In light of increased competition, MPEG should not lose sight of its guiding principles, rely on technical superiority to differentiate itself, and avoid self-cannibalize its own “products” with too many parallel efforts. - Do you think MPEG is a good conduit for research?
MPEG has achieved great traction in the marketplace because of the technical superiority of many of its standards. Inclusion of the best technologies, and a focus on impactful and meaningful research and development, should continue to guide standardization. To avoid antitrust concerns, commercial matters should have no role in the development of a standard, nor in the selection of the technology building blocks of a standard. In light of growing competition from proprietary solutions, promotion of MPEG codecs and of the MPEG model based on openness and consensus will also play an increasingly important role. Industry fora like MC-IF, which was created to promote adoption of VVC, can serve a complementary function to the technical development at MPEG. - Can you comment on your MPEG experience?
MPEG is a community of visionaries. Frank, and sometimes heated, discussions are inevitable if not even necessary for technological breakthrough. Unfortunately, however, too often technical considerations have lately taken the back seat. - Are you satisfied with MPEG standards?
Many MPEG standards have achieved broad adoption, and some have become the industry norm. Implementers embrace the quality that MPEG standards have delivered, and users expect an ever-increasing experience that only a collaborative effort can provide. - Do you think MPEG standards are the right choice?
Consensus-based standards that are open to all stakeholders regardless of business model and balance interests across industries provide unmatched benefits to consumers. MPEG standards are no different, and have delivered increasing performance to a data-hungry society. Competing “products” are challenging the MPEG model. However, I warn MPEG and the industry from embracing proprietary (or pseudo-proprietary) solutions. Proprietary platforms are inevitably a sub-optimal choice for consumers and implementers: for example, rollout, updates, availability, etc. are often controlled by a few developers, and access to the technology is not guaranteed. - What do you expect from MPEG in the future?
I support MPEG exploring the expansion into new areas such as big data compression, automotive data collection, medical applications etc., leveraging its expertise in audio / video compression to tackle other industries’ needs. Nonetheless, MPEG should focus on technology leadership and “best practices” in the development of best-in-class solutions in an open, balanced and consensus-based fashion. Promotion, through industry fora or other means, should continue. Commercial discussions should be left out of MPEG meetings. Lastly, MPEG should avoid stretching its resources (and participants) too thin by pursuing parallel, potentially self-cannibalizing projects in the same domain.
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