[M4IF News] M4IF, ISMA, and IMTC Sponsor Licensing Education and Discussion Forum ...

[Rob Koenen (M4IF)]

M4IF News Readers,
The press release below just went out on the business wire. It describes a
licensing discussion meeting that was held in Los Angeles early last week,
addressing AVC licensing issues.
Organizers and participants think it has been a very useful meeting.
Initiatives are underway to get to an AVC license. No further actions are
planned by the hosting organizations (M4IF, ISMA and IMTC) but we will keep
monitoring the situation and may take future actions if we see a way to help
things move forward.
An account of what was discussed in Los Angeles last week can be found here:
http://www.m4if.org/030609LAX/
The press release is also here:
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/cb_headline.cgi?&story_file=bw.061803/23
1695498
(you may have to remove a linebreak in order to get the link to work)
Kind Regards,
Rob Koenen
-----------------------------------------
June 18, 2023 11:05 AM US Eastern Timezone 
M4IF, ISMA, and IMTC Sponsor Licensing Education and Discussion Forum; Forum
Facilitates Exchange of Ideas on Licensing of New ITU, ISO/IEC Video
Standard
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 18, 2003--On 9 and 10 June, the MPEG-4
Industry Forum (M4IF), Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), and
International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) hosted a
"licensing discussion and education forum" in order to facilitate dialogue
on the licensing of the next-generation, advanced video coding standard.
This standard, ITU-T H.264 / ISO/IEC MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding, often
called AVC/H.264, was jointly developed by the ITU-T SG16 (VCEG, Video
Coding Experts Group) and ISO/IEC MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group).
Potential licensees engaged in an open exchange of perspectives on possible
licensing structures and offered potential licensors their views on such
possible licensing structures. 
AVC/H.264 represents the state of the art in video coding technology and is
widely expected to receive broad adoption in the consumer electronics, PC,
broadcast, mobile, wireless, videotelephony, conferencing, and streaming
industries. AVC/H.264 has already been ratified as an international standard
by the ITU and is in the final stage of ratification within ISO/IEC. 
The two-day forum was attended by 56 participants representing 45 companies
and organizations from numerous industries worldwide. The forum organizers
believe the meeting will aid in the goal of achieving timely access to
licenses for patents that are essential to the implementation of the new
video coding standard under reasonable and competitive terms. 
About IMTC 
The International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) is an
industry-leading non-profit organization whose mission is to promote,
encourage, and facilitate the development and implementation of
interoperable multimedia conferencing solutions based on open international
standards. The IMTC hosts interoperability testing events and demonstrations
throughout the world. Over the past 3 years the IMTC has hosted more than 60
interoperability-testing events to test T.120, H.320, H.323, H.324, SIP, and
Voice over IP products and services with each other. The IMTC Board of
Directors includes representatives from Cisco Systems, Dilithium Networks,
France Telecom, Nokia, Polycom, RADVISION, Ridgeway, Siemens AG, Sony,
Tandberg, Telverse. The San Ramon, California-based consortium comprises
close to 80 member organizations from around the globe. Membership is open
to any interested party, including vendors of audio, document, and video
conferencing hardware and software; academic institutions; government
agencies; and non-profit organizations. "The IMTC is making Rich Media
happen Anywhere, Anytime." More information on IMTC can be found at
http://www.imtc.org. 
About ISMA 
The Internet Streaming Media Alliance is a non-profit corporation founded in
2000 by Apple (AAPL), Cisco (CSCO), IBM (IBM), Kasenna, Inc., Philips (PHG),
and Sun Microsystems (SUNW) to accelerate the market adoption of a
universal, open standard for streaming rich media over the Internet Protocol
(IP). Today, the ISMA is a diverse alliance with representatives from all
points of the streaming workflow. In addition to the founders, the following
companies are members of the ISMA: Analog Devices, AOL Time Warner, Bitband
Technologies, Coding Technologies, Content Guard, Dolby Laboratories,
Envivio, France Telecom, Fraunhofer Institute, Hitachi, iVast, Matsushita
Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Nagravision, National Semiconductor, NDS
Technologies, Neomagic, Network Appliance, net&tv, Nextreaming, Oki Electric
Industry Co., Ltd., On2 Technologies, Optibase, Sharp Laboratories, Sony
Corporation, Telecom Italia, Thomson, University of Washington, VBrick
Systems, and Volera. More information can be accessed at
http://www.isma.tv/. 
About M4IF 
M4IF represents about 100 companies from diverse industries across North
America, Europe and Asia, addressing MPEG-4 adoption issues that go beyond
the charter of ISO/IEC MPEG. 
Activities of the forum include an interoperability program, certification,
working groups, access to ISO/MPEG committee members, and an annual
conference (WEMP-4). For more information visit: http://www.m4if.org
Contacts 
M4IF
Paul Ritchie, 925/275-6654
paul.ritchie   m4if.org 
tel. +1 408 855 6891
gsm. +1 408 823 7512
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