MPEG Industry Forum

The booth of M4IF was very well visited. One of our most popular documents was the list of members' demos at NAB. We directed many people to these exhibits. Also, our Workshop and Exhibition on MPEG-4 (WEMP4) raised much interest.
About 20-25 companies showed interest in joining M4IF. This is great news; it signals a growing interest in MPEG-4 and a growing awareness of its importance. We expect that at least 10-15 new members will join as a result, many of which at the start of the new fiscal year. The first member, Sigma Designs, signed up 2 days after NAB! Among the potential new members are many industry leaders in the professional video/multimedia arena.
Three out of four visitors had questions about licensing of MPEG-4; they all "knew there were issues". We have been able to reassure them to some extent, but the ultimate reassurance must come from license holders.
There was much interest in using MPEG-4's advanced Audio and Video coding techniques, but many were also interested in MPEG-4's new capabilities, that go beyond Audio and Video coding. While MPEG-4 competes very well in the codec area, and visitors understood the advantages of an open standard, the systems level is where MPEG-4 shows its advantages over all alternatives. There was nothing on show to rival this.
There was a significant amount of interest in encoding hardware - a sure sign that people are starting to invest in MPEG-4. Interest was notably in codecs delivering the best quality, Advanced Simple Profile or similar (e.g., Advanced Coding Efficiency) and MPEG-4 AAC.
According to several NAB veterans, there was never so much MPEG-4 at NAB. This included many long-standing companies, some companies we had never even heard of, and companies which are already using MPEG-4 daily.
The news coverage was favorable in general, with the press recognizing that MPEG-4 is now real. Of course there are licensing concerns and there was a confusing feed into the press about the alleged illegality on joint MPEG-4 licensing arrangement. This will all go away though, while MPEG-4 will stay.

Thanks!

M4IF thanks and the rest of the Global Inventures (Jennifer Kling and colleagues) and Martin Jacklin for their very professional efforts making this all go extremely smooth. Also thanks to Laura Nugent & Alan Bird from ISMA, with which we had a very good collaboration in our joint booth. Lastly, thanks to all the people from Neomagic, Fraunhofer and Sun, who showed real MPEG-4 on the booth, and to other the MPEG-4 exhibitors around the show. - April 2002, Rob Koenen

MPEG-4 News and Press Releases at NAB

iVAST Unveils MPEG-4 Platform for Creation, Delivery, and Presentation of Digital Media [iVAST, 08 Apr 02]
MPEG-4 Sees Progress at NAB Amid Resistance [internet.com, 12 Apr 02]
NAB Convention Boon for Apple, Bust for MPEG-4 [Yahoo, 11 Apr 02]
Sarnoff MPEG-4 Video Encoder Now Available On Equator BSP-15 Platform [equator, 10 Apr 02]
ClearStar links with iVast to deliver media content [Hollywoodreporter, 10 Apr 02]
Cloud Systems Teams with iVAST to Provide MPEG-4 Digital Content Production Services [iVAST, 09 Apr 02]
iVAST and ClearStar Sign Multimillion-Dollar Deal to Deliver MPEG-4 Interactive Video [iVAST, 09 Apr 02]
Oki Introduces "OKI MediaServer" with MPEG-4 ASP for Broadband [OKI, 09 Apr 02]
MPEG-4 gets backing from movie studios [ZDNet, 09 Apr 02]
MovieLink expected to use MPEG-4 [CNET, 09 Apr 02]
Sorenson Announces Availability of MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile Video Codec [Sorenson, 08 Apr 02]
NAB: Sorenson's MPEG-4 video codec previewed [MacCentral, 08 Apr 02]
Convergence is key at NAB conference [ZDNet News, 08 Apr 02]
InterTrust Announces DRM-enabled Digital Video Delivery [PR Newswire, 08 Apr 02]
Vendors Demo Mpeg-4 Interoperability [internetnews, 04 Apr 02]
InterTrust Showcases DRM at NAB for Broadcast and Digital Television [InterTrust, 04 Apr 02]
Sigma Designs Showcases New MPEG-4 Solutions at NAB2002 [Sigma Designs, 28 Mar 02]
Sigma Designs Showcases New MPEG-4 Solutions at NAB2002 [Sigma, 28 Mar 02]
Ligos Releases Newest Version of GoMotion MPEG [Ligos, 26 Mar 02]
dicas and Snell & Wilcox team up at NAB 2002 [dicas, 20 Mar 02]

MPEG-4 Exhibits at NAB

M4IF Member Companies

	MPEG-4 Industry Forum
	Avipix Technology Corporation
	dicas digital image coding GmbH
	Envivio.com, Inc.
	Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS
	Interactive Sapience Corporation
	Interra Digital Video Technologies, Inc
	InterTrust Technologies Corporation
	iVast
	Media Excel
	Sorenson Media
	Sun Microsystems, Inc.

The following non-member companies also demonstrated MPEG-4 technology

KDDI Labs
Ligos Corporation
LSI Logic
Sigma Designs
vizrt

MPEG-4 Industry Forum Booth: S6934

Get the latest on MPEG-4,
Learn all about M4IF's activities,
See member companies demonstrating their MPEG-4 Technology.

Avipix Technology Corporation

Avipix will be demonstrating their End to End ISO MPEG-4 and ISMA compliant Audio/Video Tools, including Client and Peer Streaming tools, Authoring and Encoding Tools, and Live Encoding and IP Multicast Broadcasting Tools. In addition, Avipix provides MPEG-4 software developer kits for use of MPEG-4 technology in custom applications. For information and to schedule a personal demonstration during the NAB show, please contact (732) 682-5549.

dicas digital image coding GmbH Booth: L9837 (Snell & Wilcox)

dicas will show mpegable (www.mpegable.com), the highly advanced MPEG-4 video coding technology, which supports the most common profiles of MPEG-4 video, including Advanced Simple Profile, as well as the recently released ISMA specification, at the booth of Snell & Wilcox. dicas is the first company to have introduced an MPEG-4 SDK with object-based features in the market.

Envivio.com, Inc. Booth: S7155

ISO and ISMA MPEG-4 solutions
Software based authoring, encoding, streaming, and decoding
Corporate and Consumer applications

Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS Booth: S8356/S6934

Fraunhofer IIS shows a complete MPEG-4 authoring, production and delivery system, consisting of an audio/video streaming server with integrated realtime encoder and MPEG-4 IPMP system hooked up to a leightweight DRM system, an Adobe Premiere plugin for MPEG-4 and optional ISMA compliant content creation and MPEG-4/ISMA clients for Pocket PC and Linux/Windows.

Interactive Sapience Corporation

[iSC] focuses on the assimilation of advanced interactive MPEG4 framework into traditional and non-traditional industry models. Interactive Sapience Corporation will be demonstrating their technology during the NAB 2002 Convention by appointment at Bellagio.
For information contact (415) 509-3282 or (415) 302-7881
http://www.isc.tv

Interra Digital Video Technologies, Inc. Booth: S3047

Interra will be showcasing Interra M4 software, its newly released MPEG-4 stream analyzer. M4 is a powerful, yet simple to use tool for examining MPEG-4 media files for conformance to the standard. The software is targeted to MPEG-4 professionals involved in the development of MPEG-4 products, systems and content.

InterTrust Technologies Corporation Booths: S7155 (Envivio),
L19564 (SeaChange),
S6934 (M4IF)

Together with its Rights|Alliance Partners, InterTrust offers the worlds only standards-compliant DRM-enabled MPEG-4 solution for download and streaming of MPEG-4 media. See secure MPEG-4 solutions at Envivio's and SeaChange's booths. You can also find InterTrust in the M4IF booth.

iVast Booths: S4549
S5437 (Sun Microsystems)

iVAST will unveil its latest MPEG-4 Platform technology for the creation, distribution and presentation of high-quality digital audio and video along with compelling interactive media experiences. The iVAST MPEG-4 Platform(tm) is an integrated suite of digital media management products and systems that are standards-based, business-driven, and designed to support high-performance, large-scale digital media systems. Specific products being demonstrated include iVAST Studio Encode, iVAST Studio Author, iVAST Media Server, iVAST Systemware, and iVAST Experience Player.

Media Excel Booth: S4934

Media Excel offers SoftStream™, a software solution, for real-time MPEG4 streaming and transcoding.
On a single Pentium 733 Mhz Pc, SoftStream™ does DVD real-time MPEG4 live streaming, and real-time transcoding from MPEG2 (10Mb,DVD) to MPEG4 (1.5Mb).
SoftStream is now available as a SDK (C, C++) for Windows, Linux both for Pentium/AMD and Media Processors.

Sorenson Media Booth: L14465

Sorenson Media, the leading provider of video compression and streaming software for the Web is pleased to preview Sorenson Squeeze for MPEG-4. Sorenson Squeeze for MPEG-4 supports both Simple and Advanced Simple Profile features and is fully compliant with the ISO/IEC 14496 specification.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. Booth: S5437

Streaming server software from Sun streams both on demand and live video content over the Internet and wireless networks. Supports Apple QuickTime(TM) and MPEG-4 file formats. Sun is a founding member of ISMA.