Standardisation is the process of developing and agreeing upon technical standards. The goals of standardisation can be to help with independence of single suppliers (commoditization), compatibility, interoperability, safety, repeatability, or quality. Standardisation is a strategic process in the technological evolution and commercialisation of products or services like ICT software and hardware. This implies at a very early stage of the technology a close collaboration between the research community, the industry and policy makers. This case shows that in the complexity of this standardisation process the involvement of the research community at an early stage is crucial to foster a rapid integration of new technology into new products. www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu

1. Standardisation in Media Formats
FITT
– Fostering Interregional Exchange in ICT Technology Transfer –
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

2. Standardisation in Multimedia
 Standardisation is a strategic process in the technological evolution
and commercialisation of ICT software and hardware. Therefore it is
important that there is in a very early stage of the technology a close
collaboration between the research community, the industry and
policy makers to converge this process within the standardisation
bodies.
 Nature of reusability: Standardisation in Multimedia is exemplary for
this process in other domains
 Case is mostly generic
 Quality/Nature of stakeholders: Research institutes, industry, policy,
Standardisation bodies
 Processes related to case: IP management, standardisation
2 | 03/2011 Standardisation in Media Formats

3. Standardisation
Processes in Multimedia
Peter Schelkens
Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology &
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Department of Electronics and Informatics (ETRO)

4. Today’s Focus
 Standardisation organisations, processes and structure
 Some illustrations
 IPR issues
 Conclusions
4

5. Today’s Focus
 Standardisation organisations, processes and structure
 Some illustrations
 IPR Issues
 Conclusions
5

6. Strategy
 Strategy = f(technology, international standardisation
body, European standardisation body, national
standardisation body, application domain, IPR status,
budget, regulatory aspects, etc.)
6

7. International Standardisation
 International Organisation for
Standardisation (ISO)
 http://www.iso.org/
 International Electrotechnical
Commission (IEC)
 http://www.iec.ch/
 International Telecommunication Union
(ITU)
 http://www.itu.int/
 Europe
 CEN – CENELEC – ETSI
7

8. National Organisation (Belgium)
Source: Marc Cumps – Agioria
http://www.ictstandards.be/
8

9. Normalisation Timeline
 Phases of the standardisation process:
 New Project (NP)
 Can start with Technical Report (TR)
 Working Draft (WD)
 Committee Draft (CD)
 Final Committee Draft (FCD)
 (Final) Draft International Standard ((F)DIS)
 International Standard (IS)
 Process:
 NB balloting for every step
 Consensus-based
 Duration
 2.5-3 years
 But: fast track schemes are possible
9

10. Research Timeline vs. Normalisation Timeline
vs. Commercialisation Timeline
............. Y-6 Y-5 Y-4 Y-3 Y-2 Y-1 Y0
Fundamental Research Strategic Research Industrial R&D Product
Lobbying,
Call for Evidence, IS Norm
Standardisation Process
Technical Reports Maintenance
Spin-off
IP Protection Incubation
IP Licensing
 Succesful participation = multi-lateral strategy
10

11. Today’s Focus
 Standardisation organisations, processes and structure
 Some illustrations
 IPR Issues
 Conclusions
11

12. ISO/IEC & ITU-T Standards
ITU-T ISO/IEC
JPEG
H.261 ISDN Videoconferencing MPEG-1 CD-ROM
H.262 MPEG-2 DVD, Digital TV, HDTV
Desktop/
H.263 (+) mobile video MPEG-4 Multimedia: Baseline,
telephony JPEG2000 AVC, SVC, AFX
MPEG-4
H.264 AVC MPEG-7 Metadata
MPEG-21 DRM, DIA, …
?
12

13. JPEG
 Standardised in 1994 (Start activities in 1986)
 Massive market adoption started in the late 90’s.
(Source Wikipedia dd. 2008)
13

14. MP3/AAC
 MP3 = MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (1992)
 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) = MPEG-2 Part 7 Audio
(1997) + updated in MPEG-4 Part 3 (1999, 2001)
14

15. MPEG-2
 Standardised in 1994
 Succesfully deployed in DVD and Digital Television
markets
15

16. JPEG 2000
 Standardised in 2000
 Illustration of an ecosystem standard
 Succesful in niche markets
16

17. MPEG-4 AVC or H.264
 MPEG-4 Part 10
 Standardised in 2008
17

18. Evolution in video coding
H.264 /
MPEG-4 AVC
18

19. Extension of AVC/H.264
Scalable Video Coding (SVC)
spatial resolution
4CIF
CIF
bit-rates
low
QCIF
high 60 30 15 7.5 temporal resolution

20. What will be on the menu in the future?
 Generic or focused?
 What are the technologies around?
 Intellectual property rights: a concern?
20

21. Quiche or Niche?
 Saturation effect is observable
with respect to incremental
improvements new technology
is able to bring to current
multimedia standards
 Generic technologies tend to
negate properties and
requirements of niche markets
 Embedding niche market
requirements intrinsically
overload standards with wide
coverage
21

22. What if we stay generic?
So what can our chef do?
 Halve the cake but keep the quality
 Keep the cake but double the quality
 Keep the quality and boost the fool tolerance of the
cooking process
 Improve the
presentation of
the dish
22

23. This is the recepie for ITU-T’s H.265 (1/2)
 Focus on “Less is more”
23

24. This is the recepie for ITU-T’s H.265 (2/2)
 Focus on “High Quality”
Source wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:UHDV.svg
24

25. Focus on “Fool Tolerance”
25

26. MPEG-4 Multiview Video Coding (MVC)
 Standard supporting stereo and multiview coding
 Based on H.264
27

27. JPEG-XR
 Proposed by Microsoft as successor of JPEG
 Focused on digital photography market
 Supports High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography
28

28. Advanced Image Coding (AIC)
 Focus on perceptual
quality and new image
coding technologies
 Call for Proposals has
been launched
 Similar quality related
activities in ITU-T
 Video Quality Experts
Group (VQEG)
 Video Coding Experts
Group (VCEG)
29

29. Today’s Focus
 Standardisation organisations, processes and structure
 Some illustrations
 IPR Issues
 Conclusions
30

30. Intellectual Property and Standards:
a Tough Nut to Crack
 Two streams
 Royalty fee free standards
 JPEG, JPEG 2000 ...
 Licensing fee based standards
 H.264, ...
31

31. Intellectual Property and Standards:
a Tough Nut to Crack
32

32. Today’s Focus
 Standardisation organisations, processes and structure
 Some illustrations
 IPR Issues
 Conclusions
33

33. Conclusions
 Strategy = f(technology, international standardisation
body, European standardisation body, national
standardisation body, application domain, IPR status,
budget, regulatory aspects, etc.)
 Be involved!
 You have impact
 Standardisation bodies are an invaluable source of
information
 But, you have to compose the menu
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