MPEG-4: Bright Star or Black Hole?
By David Iler
from the June 18, 2001 issue of Broadband Week
The planets are aligning around the next-generation MPEG-4 standard for multimedia content, as new authoring tools from Envivio.com Inc. and iVast Inc. are expected to be available this fall. Those join a litany of MPEG-4-based products under development by dozens of vendors. And as patent and intellectual property issues slowly work their way to resolution, the path to wide adoption of the promising standard may soon be clear.
But to date there is little MPEG-4 content, no widely distributed MPEG-4 playback software, and few, if any, devices on the market that can decode MPEG-4 media. That reality, many believe, is about to change.
For content creators who want "to provide interactive data and real interactivity, the only choice is going to be MPEG-4," says Alex Hoag, Envivio's chief operating officer.
"We are looking at MPEG-4 for a number of things," says Gordon Castle, senior vice president of strategic digital systems for Cable News Network, including broadcast production, real-time compositing, archiving and streaming media. "MPEG-4 will be a very viable production standard, just the way MPEG-2 is today," says Castle. He adds that MPEG-4's ability to support variable bit rate outputs from a single file without extreme degradation, and its rendering of high-definition video are compelling features, among others.
An evolution of the Motion Picture Experts Group's now-ubiquitous MPEG-2 digital video format, the complex MPEG-4 standard features audio, video and systems layers and offers variable bit rate encoding for both narrowband and broadband delivery in a single file, which is important for content creators delivering content to multiple devices, such as personal computers, set-box boxes, handheld devices and Internet appliances.
MPEG-4 also employs an object-based compression method, contrasting with MPEG-2's frame-based compression technique. Building upon the scene descriptions of Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML), MPEG-4 allows objects, such as 2- or 3-D video objects, text, graphics or sound, to be manipulated and made interactive through Web-like hyperlinks and/or multimedia triggers.
As a streaming media format, MPEG-4 is seen as resolving the "codec war" that RealNetworks Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Apple Computer Inc. (makers of RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, and QuickTime, respectively) have been waging for PC desktop video players.
Because of its versatility and the prospect of MPEG-4-based content proliferating everywhere, MPEG-4 is attracting a lot of attention. Late last year, Entera Inc. and Motorola Broadband Communications Sector announced plans to develop MPEG-4 encoding and decoding products while Toshiba America Electronic Components announced an MPEG-4 decoder chip.
In April, Royal Philips Electronics NV and Sun Microsystems announced joint development of a network platform to deliver and display MPEG-4 content, while digital video encoder developer Sigma Designs Inc. and Envivio joined forces to develop MPEG-4 technologies.
At this year's National Association of Broadcasters annual convention, iVast announced that FOXSports.com, Mandalay Entertainment, Pearson Broadband and The Post Group will become its content partners.
For iVast and Envivio, it's not a matter of "if" MPEG-4 will take off, only "when." Jeff Benrey, vice president of marketing for iVast, points to the success of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 formats and the number of companies that have built significant businesses around MPEG-2, from chip suppliers and set-top box makers to content creators and post-production shops.
Given that "family history," MPEG-4 stands above any other format in terms of widespread adoption, says Benrey. "There is no other choice" for rich media, says Hoag. "SMIL (Synchronous Multimedia Integration Language) won't get the job done."
The personal computer will most likely be the first device to widely support MPEG-4, given the processing power of today's PCs and the relative ease of downloading software to play back content, a process Web surfers are generally familiar with. But Benrey says "the sweet spot (for MPEG-4 adoption) will be the set-top box" which he speculates will occur late in 2002, followed later by wireless devices (PDAs, handhelds, cell phones, etc.) jumping aboard in 2002 or 2003.
However, Benrey notes that "everything begins with the content owners. They have to buy into the next-generation medium." And while MPEG-4 has already won over some, other content creators are moving slower to adopt MPEG-4.
"At the moment, we're not planning to use MPEG-4," says Bill Swersey, director of digital media operations for Rainbow Media Holdings Inc.'s Bravo network. "We're certainly evaluating new technologies all the time and it's possible in the future we might (use MPEG-4)," Swersey adds.
Bravo's re-designed Web site (which will be launched at an undisclosed date) will use QuickTime, RealPlayer and Windows Media Player for video playback.
Of course, the MPEG-4 tools content creators have at their disposal today are extremely limited, a situation iVast and Envivio are looking to change. iVast is developing authoring tools, server and playback software for download-and-play, kiosk and intranet applications. iVast, says Benrey, will be rolling out a beta program this month that will run through the summer, with a fall release of the completed platform scheduled.
To date, iVast has developed for demonstration purposes a plug-in for Adobe Premiere, a widely used video editing software program, that lets developers create MPEG-4-compliant audio and video streams.
Ultimately, the company wants to license its server technology to network operators and content owners, its player tech to set-top box makers and others, and its authoring tools to third party software developers.
Envivio, according to Hoag, "is looking at MPEG-4 as a professional and media organization format," and is targeting companies that create content. The company's broadcast professional media software is designed to be a high-end "distributed computer authoring system" for multiple users in a production environment. Envivio is supporting the Solaris, IRIX, Linux, Windows 2000 and Macintosh OSX platforms. Besides authoring and encoding tools, Envivio is developing media server software and a client.
Not everyone is sold on MPEG-4, however, including RealNetworks. Ben Rotholtz, general manager of products and systems for RealNetworks, cites a common criticism of standards: they can "freeze" or "lock-down" technology at a certain point in time while other non-standard technologies can mature. "It's just another codec," says Rotholtz, who notes that RealVideo 8 and RealSystem iQ offer playback support for 50 media types, including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MP3.
"Is there a strong need to have one video codec that the industry standardizes on?" Rotholtz asks.
Real's video streaming format, RealVideo 8 (which supports QuickTime), says Rotholtz, "is a much newer architecture" than MPEG-4.
Rotholtz also brings up the uncertainties surrounding MPEG-4 patents and royalties. According to Rob Koenen, president of the MPEG-4 Industry Forum, the "essential patents" for the video portion of the standard have been determined and meetings have been called to discuss licensing terms.
Evaluations of MPEG-4 system essential patents are nearing an end, while audio evaluations are underway. Koenen is hoping for a fall resolution to MPEG-4's patent and licensing issues, which "need to be resolved for (MPEG-4's) widespread adoption."
Clearly, it will be up to content owners to drive the adoption of MPEG-4, and they will determine if the functionality, authoring tools and royalty terms warrant a migration to the standard.
|
