MPEG-4 & Windows Media Dr. Jordi Ribas-Corbera Lead Program Manager, Codecs Digital Media Division Microsoft Corp

2 Overview  Digital Media Introduction  Windows Media Technologies and MPEG-4  MPEG-4 status in industry  Benefits of MPEG-4  Microsoft efforts in MPEG-4  Challenges facing MPEG-4  Microsoft’s position on MPEG-4  Summary

3  Many devices  Wired or wireless  Access from anywhere  Software Integration  Personalized delivery Digital Media World Rich Services

4 Live Feed Windows Media Encoder Windows Media Services Server Windows Media Player PC, Hand-held, STB UNICAST, MULTICAST Stored Content Live Content On-demand Content Content Authoring Distribution Playback LicenseServer Streaming from a WM Server (or Web Server) Windows Media Tech Download & Play Streaming

5 Windows Media Tech and MPEG4 Windows Media Player Windows Media Encoder Windows Media Rights Manager Windows Media Format (ASF + Codecs + DRM) Windows Media SDK Windows Media Services WMT Windows Media Embedded PAK WM Format CODECS: Windows Media Video Windows Media Audio ISO MPEG-4 Video Windows Media Screen

6 MPEG-4 Status in Industry  Several companies are implementing different parts of MPEG-4 in their products  Apple, Envivio.com, E-vue, Fraunhofer, Ivast, Matsushita, Microsoft, Philips, Sharp, Toshiba, …  First successful interoperable products (developed independently) using MPEG-4 Video  Sharp’s Internet ViewCam and Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, in 1999  NTT DoCoMo “Eggy” wireless terminal and Microsoft’s Windows Media Encoder and Player, in 2000  Some tools for creating and authoring MPEG-4 format emerging

7 Benefits of MPEG-4  Standards are helpful for interoperability  Follows successful MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 efforts  Improved quality over previous MPEG standards  E.g., MPEG-4 Video (version 1) saves 15-25% of bit rate over MPEG-2 -- according to MPEG-4 tests  Larger set of target applications over previous MPEG standards  From very low to very high bit rates  Multiple codecs for different media (voice, still image, etc.)  Several companies are already implementing parts of the standard

8 Microsoft Efforts in MPEG-4  Actively participant since 1995 to help develop MPEG-4  100+ contributions  focused on Video coding  Contributed C++ official version of Verification Model (VM) Video software (enc/dec) to ISO  Current MPEG Video Chairman is from Microsoft  Created essential IP used in standard  Participating in MPEG-4 Video Patent Pool (currently there are 19 companies in M4VisualPHG)  Helped make MPEG-4 popular in industry  Supported MPEG-4 Video codec in Windows Media Technologies  Partnered with companies using MPEG-4 Video Interoperating with products / services from NTT DoCoMo, Sharp, … Interoperating with products / services from NTT DoCoMo, Sharp, … Demo Demo

9 Challenges Facing MPEG-4  Huge standard  limits interoperability  Video with ~20 profiles (simple, core, main, still texture, streaming, advanced simple, etc.), Graphics (SHNC, FAPs), Audio, Speech, Systems (File Format, Bifs, DMIF)  Many versions: V1, V2, V3, V4 …  MPEG-4 is a large set of tools that companies pick and choose  MPEG-4 video quality not competitive with state of the art in compression  Other emerging Standards such as ITU-T H.26L claim better performance  E.g., see Q15-H-21 in ftp://standard.pictel.com/video-site/9908_Ber,  Popular internet codecs already providing better quality  E.g., Real Video 8 and Windows Media Video 8  New video codec effort starting in MPEG  Some features are unproven commercially as of now  E.g., object-based coding, sprites, SHNC, FAPs, Bifs, …  MPEG-4 lacks complete solution for end-to-end delivery  No Digital Rights Management, Screen codec, Networking protocols/Server (with system layer)  Licensing of MPEG-4 not yet clear

10 Microsoft’s Position on MPEG-4  Microsoft continues support of MPEG-4 video for interoperability  Microsoft continues to innovate with Windows Media  Customers demand the best quality  State-of-the-art Windows Media Video and Audio codecs  Complete end-to-end solutions  Digital Rights Management  High-performance streaming protocols/server  Specialized codecs such as Windows Media Screen

11 Summary  Microsoft provides support for MPEG-4 video today for interoperability  MPEG-4 is a broad standard and likely not all components will achieve commercial viability  Other technologies are also needed to meet customers requirements  Customers can choose interoperability or better quality / feature set with Windows Media

12 Q & A  For more information  