Thirty-six years ago today marked the birth of the MPEG-Audio group. The initial two characters of MPEG - M (oving) and the P (icture) - leave no doubt about the original public intentions in setting up the MPEG group which had met for the first time in Ottawa, ON on 10-12 May. My real intentions, however, were very clear in my mind since the very beginning (actually, they dated back several years before): an audio-visual system had to be specified…
…and exactly as many as 30 is the number of years that separates today from the closing day of the 29th MPEG meeting in Singapore when the MPEG-2 standard was approved. It was the 11th of November 1994. The approval of MPEG-2 was a watershed because it was the conclusion of a turmoil that had lasted three decades. MPEG succeeded in what, less than six years before, looked like mission impossible: a solution to the “next-generation TV” for the three…
In November 1992, MPEG had already christened the first three parts of its first MPEG-1 standard: the System, Video, and Audio triad. The approval of those three standards did not mean the end of MPEG-1 because work continued with Conformance and Reference Software. These two projects, however, would have been too little for MPEG people hungry for new challenges. Indeed, there as a reason if in July 1990 MPEG has started exploring the “MPEG Second Work Item”. In November 1991,…
Geneva, Switzerland – 23 November 2022. Today the international, non-profit, unaffiliated Moving Picture, Audio and Data Coding by Artificial Intelligence (MPAI) standards developing organisation has concluded its 26th General Assembly (MPAI-26). MPAI is calling for new members to support the development of its work program. Planned for approval in the first months of 2023 are 5 standards and 1 technical report: AI Framework (MPAI-AIF). Standard for a secure AIF environment executing AI Workflows (AIW) composed of AI Modules (AIM). Avatar…
…and that is the number that separates us from the pre-digital age. Why should the 6th of November 1992 be the beginning of the digital age?? Well, because 30 years ago, this very day, MPEG approved its first – MPEG-1 – standard. I am sure that some of you would want to disagree, not with the anniversary, but with its significance. So let me insist and say that MPEG-1 is the dividing line between the digital age and whatever age…
In this article, I continue the tradition of reporting on major MPEG events when one of them comes to an anniversary. This time the anniversary concerns the word “profile”. In July 1990, when the MPEG-1 standard was far from done (it would only be approved in November 1992), a diverse group of individuals attended the first MPEG-2 session, brainstorming on requirements for the "second phase of MPEG work" as MPEG-2 was warily called at that time. The engine took time…
