[Mp4-tech] Tweening-based compression

[Olivier Amato]

Dear experts,
Does anybody know if this new "tweening-based compression" is based on H.264
or not ?
"Four high-tech companies involved in telecommunications and video have been
awarded a $ 4 million grant from the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) to develop a system that provides video services to the
U.S. market over the telephone network using asymmetrical Digital Subscriber
Lines (DSL). The project is expected to give consumers more choice and lower
prices by making DSL more competitive with other broadband services, such as
cable and satellite TV.
Sarnoff Corp. Alcatel, SBS Laboratories and Thomson will collaborate on the
development of a video system mechanism that enables live or recorded
program feeds to be sent to subscribers, and provides a selection of streams
to be distributed in real time for decoding and viewing. Each subscriber
will be able to view two separate programs on two different TV sets.
To accommodate two video streams on one DSL link, the team plans to compress
the video to an average bitrate of 500 kb/s per stream, three times as small
as can be achieved with MPEG-2/4. The proposed system is what the team calls
"tweening-based compression," a low-bit-rate video compression algorithm
that takes its name from the process of "tweening" used in animation. The
team also will use an "intelligent video multiplexing" concept, consisting
of novel encoding and encapsulation techniques that enable selected video
data packets to be discarded without impairing video quality when traffic
exceeds transmission limits."
http://www.tvtechnology.com/dailynews/one.php?id=1607
http://www.sarnoff.com/news/index.asp?releaseID=152
Olivier Amato
Media technologies consultant.