International organisation for standardisation organisation internationale de normalisation

1MPEG-4 Visual Simple Profile Level 6

The specification text and conformance part related to the new level 6 (720p resolution) of MPEG-4 Visual Simple Profile have progressed as expected. No comments were made by NBs, but minor editorial improvements were made based on editors’ input.
Documents reviewed:

14810	SC 29 Secretariat	Summary of Voting on ISO/IEC 14496-2:2004/FPDAM 4
14813	SC 29 Secretariat	Summary of Voting on ISO/IEC 14496-4:2004/FPDAM 28
15017	Justin Ridge, Jani Lainema, Soren Friis	Proposed text of ISO/IEC 14496-2:2004/FDAM4 Simple Profile Level 6
15018	Justin Ridge, Jani Lainema, Soren Friis	Proposed text of ISO/IEC 14496-4:2004/FDAM28 Visual Simple Profile Level 6 Conformance Testing

Documents approved:

No.	Title	TBP	Available
	14496-2 Visual
9432	Text of ISO/IEC 14496-2:2004/FDAM4 Simple Profile Level 6	N	07/11/02
9438	Text of ISO/IEC 14496-4:2004/FDAM28 Visual Simple Profile Level 6 Conformance Testing	N	07/11/02

2MPEG-4 Video Conformance Corrigenda

Corrigenda related to some erroneous bitstreams and misplacements between the 2004 edition and Amd.1 were progressed. No NB comments had been received.
Documents reviewed:

14795	SC 29 Secretariat	Summary of Voting on ISO/IEC 14496-4:2004/DCOR 4 [SC 29 N 8701]
14826	SC 29 Secretariat	Summary of Voting on ISO/IEC 14496-4:2004/Amd.1:2005/DCOR 2

Documents approved:

No.	Title	TBP	Available
	14496-4 Conformance testing
9436	Text of ISO/IEC 14496-4:2004/COR4	N	07/11/02
9437	Text of ISO/IEC 14496-4:2004/Amd.1/COR2	N	07/11/02

3Video Standards Support for larger Formats

A request for support of larger formats in existing video standards (13818-2, 14496-2, 14496-10) was made by the JNB (M14863). It is mentioned that formats such as 1920x1080 with up to 120/240 fps progressive, 4kx2k/60p, 8kx4k/60p are being prepared/discussed in industry and standardization bodies such as SMPTE. It should be avoided that proprietary definitions appear in the market, and it was therefore suggested MPEG should start consideration of defining additional profiles/levels rather soon.
In the subsequent discussion, it was emphasized that the technical specification of levels requires definition of other aspects in addition to supported frame sizes and frame rates. In terms of minimizing decoder complexity, parameters such as maximum allowable buffer sizes, bit rates of the compressed representation, restrictions on slice structure use, or restrictions on specific tools are also important and require careful consideration (e.g. to support parallel decoding of large frame sizes). Some of these values may also be different for consumer or professional applications. National bodies are therefore requested to provide more information toward specification of such parameters. This could best be studied on the basis of implementation plans and use cases. Timelines and expectations for appearance of such high-resolution formats in the market would be helpful to allow possible extension of standards in a timely fashion.
More concrete proposals were made as follows:

M14868: Propose to define support for 1920x1080/60p. It is mentioned that the demand for MPEG-2 comes in particular by software-based solutions where AVC may not be usable for complexity reasons. Further application examples could be camcorders, eventually distribution. Clarifications were requested on the following issues:

• 
  Should there be a limitation of not supporting interlaced tools at that level?
  
• 
  More clarity about the application scope and industry support (currently one company only) would be desirable
  
• 
  Further study on possibly supporting higher frame rates.
  

M14869: MPEG-4 simple studio profile currently supports up to 1080/60p (level 4). A request was made to define new levels 5 and 6, supporting 4KxK/24p and /60p, respectively. Furthermore, in level 4, it was suggested that the maximum bit rate should be reduced to 1.35 Gbps (from currently 1.8 Gbps). In general, it is reportedly obvious that these larger formats are needed in professional applications that are targeted by the studio profiles. The following comment was made: It would be useful to restrict frame sizes to a certain minimum frame height (current MPEG-4 Visual would allow to have 16-pixel high frames, which would impose overly burdens on the padding process in decoders). It was therefore decided to issue a PDAM on new levels (and another one on related conformance), as well as a DCOR on the reduced bit rate of level 4.
M14890: This contribution is less concrete in requesting technical specifications than the two previous ones. The proponent mentions that current consideration is introduction of higher resolution formats (4Kx2K being the first beyond 1080p) in the consumer markets not earlier than 2011, and 8Kx4K even beyond that time. It was raised during the discussion that AVC already has 3 top levels for which nobody has implemented decoding devices yet. MPEG&JVT are interested to hear more about such developments, but currently it appears too early to go for a concrete definition of new levels.
Documents reviewed:

14863	JNB	JNB comment on video coding standards for beyond HDTV applications The video subgroup thanks the JNB for the comments on developing video coding standards for beyond current HDTV capabilities. We are always prepared to extend existing standards by specifying additional profiles and levels in a timely fashion to appropriately serve industry and application needs. However, the technical specification of levels requires definition of other aspects in addition to supported frame sizes and frame rates, which could simply be drawn from specifications of other standardization bodies such as ITU-R and SMPTE. In terms of minimizing decoder complexity, parameters such as maximum allowable buffer sizes, bit rates of the compressed representation, restrictions on slice structure use, or restrictions on specific tools are also important and require careful consideration. We therefore request national bodies to provide more information toward specification of such parameters. This could best be studied on the basis of implementation plans and use cases. We would further be interested to learn more about the timelines and expectations for appearance of such high-resolution formats in the market. Regarding particular proposals on levels for higher-resolution formats, WG 11 has started work on one corrigendum and one amendment of ISO/IEC 14496-2 (to define and correct Simple Studio Profile levels 4-6).
14868	Teruhiko Suzuki	Proposal of new level for MPEG-2 video
14869	Teruhiko Suzuki	Proposal of new levels for MPEG-4 visual studio profile
14890 (=JVT-Y035)	Yukihiro Nishida	Request for extending the levels of MPEG4 AVC

Documents approved:

No.	Title	TBP	Available
	14496-2 Visual
9434	Request for ISO/IEC 14496-2:2004/Amd.5	N	07/10/26
9435	Text of ISO/IEC 14496-2:2004/PDAM5 Simple Studio Profile Levels 5 and 6	N	07/11/09
9439	Request for ISO/IEC 14496-4:2004/Amd.35	N	07/10/26
9440	Text of ISO/IEC 14496-4:2004/PDAM35 Simple Studio Profile Levels 5 and 6 Conformance Testing	N	07/11/09