MPEG Industry Forum

San Ramon, 28 March 2024 - The MPEG-4 Industry Forum (M4IF) today welcomed the licensing program for MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) patents, that was announced by Dolby Labs on 26 March. The license terms outlined in this program will support broad adoption of ISO/IEC's MPEG-4 AAC in both audiovisual and audio-only applications. MPEG-4 AAC is the best generic audio codec available in the market today. Its consistently excellent performance across all types of audio content makes it preferable to the various proprietary alternatives.

MPEG-4 AAC provides coding that is roughly 35-40% more efficient than MPEG-1 Layer III (MP3), which is important when available bandwidth needs to be shared between audio and video bits. "We expect that the terms of the license will allow MPEG-4 AAC to be adopted across markets", said Rob Koenen, President of M4IF. "It is very good to see that the entry barrier for Internet usage is kept very low, as we expect this environment to set the next trend in audio coding."

M4IF hopes that this encouraging step will lead to a program that will include essential patents from more patent owners, offering the market easy access to as many licenses needed to implement complete MPEG-4 Profiles as possible. Being able to implement complete Profiles is essential in ensuring interoperability among encoders and decoders from different vendors.

Another MPEG-4 licensing program, for MPEG-4 Visual Profiles, was announced in January by MPEG LA. While that announcement has sparked much debate, M4IF remains confident that these licensors will adapt the program to make it suit the needs of all MPEG-4 markets. "While the Visual licensing terms are viable in some markets, such as packaged-media content distribution, there is serious concern about the effect on MPEG-4 adoption in other areas, such as Internet streaming or broadcast", said Koenen. "We expect these concerns to be addressed by licensors, which of course benefit from MPEG-4's widespread acceptance."

M4IF recently announced an open discussion forum for all issues that affect the uptake of MPEG-4, licensing being the first discussion topic. The open discussion list is at [email protected]. Anyone can subscribe at http://www.m4if.org/public/publiclistreg.php.

About MPEG-4

MPEG-4 is the interactive coding standard for all digital multimedia platforms. Developed by the "Moving Picture Experts Group" that designed MPEG-2 (the digital television standard), MPEG-1 and MP3. Being object-based and extending beyond video and audio, MPEG-4 supports rich, interactive, standards-based multimedia from low bandwidths to transparent quality.

About M4IF

M4IF consists of more than 100 companies from diverse industries evenly distributed across North America, Europe and Asia, addressing all MPEG-4 adoption issues that go beyond the charter of ISO/IEC MPEG.

Activities of the forum include an interoperability program, certification, several working groups, access to ISO/MPEG committee members, and the 3rd annual Workshop and Exhibition on MPEG-4 from 25-27 June in San Jose, US. More information: http://www.m4if.org

Press Contact:
Rob Koenen, President M4IF
+1 408 823 7512
[email protected]

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