FW: MPEG News Release re: MPEG 21

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just in case..
Chuck

-----Original Message-----
From: Hodge, Chris [mailto:chodge5@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 10:29 AM
To: RIGHTS-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: MPEG News Release re: MPEG 21


MPEG approves another MPEG-21 Technology

Trondheim, Norway, 29 July 2003. The vision of a multimedia framework took
another giant leap forward with completion of Parts 5 and 6 of MPEG-21,
the Rights Expression Language (REL) and its associated Rights Data
Dictionary (RDD). The REL and the RDD, together form a powerful tool for
managing the consumption rights of all forms of content. The REL can also
be used independently, if desired.

The REL provides industry with the means to create expressions that can
then be associated with audio/video and other content to express what the
consumer can do with that content. REL expressions can be as simple as
play and can also express the complex consumption models that can be
devised. Along with MPEG-21 Parts 2 and 3 (Digital Item Declaration and
Digital Item Identification) that are already completed, the addition of
the REL/RDD moves the MPEG-21 Multimedia Framework one step closer to
fruition. Progress was also made on other MPEG-21 technology this week.

The Digital Item Adaptation work advanced to the penultimate stage in
Trondheim. DIA, as it is known, is important for being making it possible
to successfully render multimedia content on a myriad of multifunction
devices by taking into account the network and terminal characteristics of
the multimedia consumption infrastructure

Other MPEG news

MPEG Systems support for AVC
The technology to carry AVC (MPEG-4 Part 10) over MPEG-2 Transport Stream
and MPEG-4 File Format was also upgraded. The ability to use AVC in
conjunction with MPEG-2 in broadcast applications is in high demand by
industry as is the ability to carry in AVC in the very popular MPEG-4 file
format currently used for many applications, such as 3GPP, not just in
MPEG.

MPEG-4 Visual
MPEG has completed an amendment to MPEG-4 Visual (Part2), which defines an
'Error-resilient Simple Scalable Profile'. This new technology provides
increased quality in error-prone mobile environments. The addition of
error resilience to the suite of tools in MPEG-4 Visual will facilitate
re-synchronization enhancement information to be transmitted.

MPEG Reference Hardware
MPEG continues make every effort to make using its standards easier. At
its 65th meeting MPEG completed the work on the MPEG-4 reference hardware
(Part 9). This completes a first important step in a two step process that
will ultimately include the integration of both the optimized reference
software (Part 7) and this now complete reference hardware part of MPEG-4.
The just completed Part 10 (AVC) is also slated to have its reference
hardware and software implementations made available to all of industry as
soon as they are completed. Contributions are being sought by MPEG for
this purpose.

_____________________________________________________________
Details of how to obtain MPEGs Calls for Proposals (CfPs) and other public
information is shown below.

Call for Proposals on Lossless Coding of 1-bit Audio Signals
This WG11 CfP calls for technology appropriate for the lossless
compression of 1-bit oversampled representations of audio. Responses are
due at the 67th MPEG meeting in December 2003. The success of Super Audio
CD (SACD) has given rise to this need. One-bit audio is of value as an
audio archiving format both for materials that are originated in a one-bit
format and as a format to which analog recordings can be transferred.

Further information
Future MPEG meetings are as follows: 66th meeting in Queensland, Australia
from 20-24 October 2003, and the 67th meeting Waikaloa, Hawaii from 8-12
December 2003 and the 68th meeting in Munich, Germany from 19-23 March
2004.
For further information about MPEG, please contact:

Dr. Leonardo Chiariglione, (Convenor of MPEG, Italy)
Via S. Ambrogio, 4
10040 Villar Dora (TO), Italy
Tel  +39 011 935 04 61
Email: mailto:leonardo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
or
Peter Schirling (HoD of US MPEG Committee)
IBM Research  Digital Media Standards
River Road, MS 862H
Essex Junction, VT 05452, US
Tel +1 802 769 6123 Fax: +1 802 769 7362
Email: schirlin@xxxxxxxxxx
This press release and other MPEG-related information can be found on the
MPEG homepage:
http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg
For the Outstanding Call for Proposals, see the Hot News section,
http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/hot_news.htm
The MPEG homepage has links to other MPEG pages, which are maintained by
some of the subgroups. It also contains links to public documents that are
freely available for download to non-MPEG members.
Journalists that wish to receive MPEG Press Releases by email can contact
Peter Schirling.

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