Progress on Advancing Streaming Media Standard

For the first time, the two major MPEG-4 standards bodies
are putting their heads together for interoperability testing of the
standard that is poised to propel the next generation of streaming media
delivery.

The Internet Streaming Media Alliance and MPEG-4 Industry Forum announced the
partnership Friday at the International Broadcasting Convention 2002 in
Amsterdam. The firms have planned a joint event featuring ISMA v1.0 -based
products and services in October where, for the first time, the 120 members
of the two groups may test each others’ MPEG-4 players and streams.

“To deliver on the promise of open MPEG-4 and IP standards [IETF], we must
make sure that all elements in the ecosystem work together,” said Tim
Schaaff, Board member of ISMA and M4IF. “The market expects seamless
interoperability between different products, and these test will ensure
products and services will meet these expectations.”

The ISMA v1.0 specification, which may be viewed at the ISMA site, defines an implementation agreement for
streaming ISO-compliant MPEG-4 video and audio over Internet Protocols (IP).

Prior to this announcement, each group has held separate testing workshops
to propel MPEG-4 products to the market faster. ISMA’s interoperability
program has held over 10 “Plug Fests” where member companies test and refine
their ISMA v1.0 implementation. In turn, M4IF’s interoperability program
boasts over 30 participants who have exchanged MPEG-4 content for over a
year.

ISMA is a non-profit corporation founded by Apple , Cisco
Systems , IBM
, Kasenna, Philips (PHG) and Sun Microsystems . M4IF addresses MPEG-4 adoption issues that go beyond the
charter of ISO/IEC MPEG. Activities of the forum include an interoperability
program, certification, working groups and access to ISO/MPEG committee
members.

Supporters of the MPEG-4 standard will likely seen Friday’s play as a
positive, unifying experience. Rather than two separate groups doing their
own thing, they now have each other’s support in the face of what many
analysts see as competing
proprietary digital media software from the likes of Microsoft and RealNetworks .

Unfortunately for MPEG-4 proponents, neither is in a hurry to see
MPEG-4 flourish in the market after cultivating their own successful products for the
last several years. However, Microsoft and RealNetworks are busy enough
ballting each other for digital media supremacy.

MPEG-4 also faces competition from such firm’s as New York’s On2, also knows as The Duck Corporation, which
sells its own brand of open-source
codecs.

Still, the market for MEPG-4 is lucrative. According to In-Stat/MDR, the popularity of MPEG compression gave rise to an MPEG video chip market with more than $1 billion in revenue in 2001, with annual unit shipments were over 100 million.