1. Introduction Metaverse is expected to create new jobs, opportunities, and experiences and transform virtually all sectors of human interaction. To harness its potential, however, there are hurdles to overcome: There is no common agreement on what a “metaverse” is or should be. The potential users of the metaverse  are too disparate. Many successful independent implementations of “metaverse” already exist. Some important enabling technologies may be years away. To seamlessly use metaverses, standards are needed. Before engaging in metaverse standardisation,…

Fifteen months ago, MPAI started an investigation on AI-based End-to-End Video Coding, a new approach to video coding not based on traditional architectures. Recently published results show that Version 0.3 of the MPAI-EEV Reference Model (EEV-0.3) has generally higher performance than the MPEG-HEVC video coding standard when applied to the MPAI set of high-quality drone video sequences. This is now supersed by the news that the soon-to-be-released EEV-0.4 subjectively outperforms the MPEG-VVC codec using low-delay P configuration. Join the online…

Geneva, Switzerland – 25 January 2023. Today the international, non-profit, unaffiliated Moving Picture, Audio and Data Coding by Artificial Intelligence (MPAI) standards developing organisation has concluded its 28th General Assembly (MPAI-28) approving the Neural Network Watermarking (MPAI-NNW) Technical Specification, the MPAI Metaverse Model (MPAI-MMM) Technical Report, and the 2023 program of work on the Metaverse. MPAI-28 has approved for publication the following two documents: Neural Network Watermarking (MPAI-NNW). Draft Technical Specification providing methodologies to evaluate the performance of neural network-based…

Fifteen months ago, MPAI started an investigation on AI-based End-to-End Video Coding, a new approach is not based on traditional video coding architectures. Recently published results from the investigation show that Version 0.3 of the MPAI-EEV Reference Model has generally higher performance than the MPEG-HEVC video coding standard when applied to the MPAI set of high-quality drone video sequences. MPAI is now offering its Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) sequence dataset for use by the video community in testing compression algorithms.…

XR Venues is an MPAI project (MPAI-XRV) addressing use cases enabled by Extended Reality (XR) technologies – the combination of Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) – and enhanced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. The word “venue” is used as a synonym for “real and virtual environments”. The XRV group has identified some 10 use cases and made a detailed analysis of three of them: eSports Tournament, Live theatrical stage performance, and Experiential retail/shopping. How did…