MPEG Industry Forum

12 September 2023 - The MPEG-4 Industry Forum (M4IF), which is hosting several leading MPEG-4 technology vendors at the International Broadcasting Convention, IBC2002 in Amsterdam this week, announces substantial advances in MPEG-4 technology and strong market adoption on a global basis.

MPEG-4 is an open, international media standard for all digital multimedia platforms, including audio, video as well as interactive content and services from low bandwidths to high-definition quality. MPEG-4 is the newest representation standard in well over a decade of successive standards developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) of the International Standards organization (ISO) - the group that designed MPEG-2 (the digital television standard) and MPEG-1, which includes MP3 (MPEG-1, Layer III Audio).

Since MPEG-4 is an ISO standard, digital media companies can count on the adoption of MPEG-4 throughout the consumer entertainment value chain, by chip designers, device manufactures, network operators, programming networks, content producers and network infrastructure vendors. The resulting free market competition on a level playing field has many times proven that open standards are the only viable route to constantly improving quality and engineering excellence.

"MPEG-4 is now at the point where MPEG-2 was halfway the 90's, poised for global adoption throughout the digital media ecosystem," states Rob Koenen, President of M4IF. "With licensing issues resolved since July and dozens of companies - large and small - offering interoperable MPEG-4 systems, the technology is mature, and will shortly outpace all other digital media content formats. No single proprietary technology vendor can compete with the intellectual force and market adoption across industry segments that come from open, international standards like MPEG."

MPEG-4 is designed to support the economical and industrial requirements of high-volume, consumer electronic device value chains that enable the mass distribution of video systems. MPEG-2 has already been adopted as the basis of DVD and digital broadcast networks worldwide. 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.

"Integration of MPEG4 audio and video compression in dedicated chips gives much higher quality and lower cost compared to running proprietary software on general-purpose processors," commented Guy Lauvergeon, VP Multimedia in the Telecom, Peripheral and Automotive Groups of STMicroelectronics.
"Standardized, dedicated chips have driven the unprecedented market success of MPEG2, in systems like set-top boxes and DVD players. We expect that the same will happen with MPEG4."

In addition to superior audio and video compression, MPEG-4 provides a standardized framework for many other forms of media-including text, pictures, animation, 2D and 3D objects-which can be presented in interactive and personalized media experiences. "By analogy, MPEG-4 is to digital media as HTML is to text and pictures-an organizing framework that is limited only by the imagination of content creators and the innovation of technology providers," according to Elliot Broadwin, CEO of iVAST, a leading MPEG-4 platform provider.

Over 30 MPEG-4 vendors will be onsite at IBC, including, at M4IF's own booth located at hall 7, booth# 620, Amphion Semiconductor (IE), Coding Technologies (DE), Dicas (DE), Equator (US), Fraunhofer (DE), iVAST (US) and Media Excel (US/TW). For a complete list of MPEG-4 companies at the show visit: http://www.m4if.org/exhibitions/IBC2002

About M4IF
M4IF represents more than 100 companies from diverse industries evenly distributed 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 a long running and established interoperability program, certification, several working groups, access to ISO/MPEG committee members, and an annual conference (WEMP-4). For more information visit: http://www.m4if.org.

More information
Martin Jacklin, M4IF Media Relations, (Switzerland), +41 (79) 291 1882 (m)
[email protected]

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