MPEG, the global media standards development consortium, will convene in Geneva on January 20 this year.

The occasion will notch the approach of a milestone. MPEG’s rendezvous in southwestern Switzerland will come one time shy of the international organization meeting one hundred fifty times.

Joining the MPEG 149 conference online, not in person this time, will be Unified Streaming Research Representative Mohamad Raad.

Content authenticity

Raad expects the meeting to focus on media authenticity and provenance, a topic that has quickly risen in urgency. As AI tools become more accurate at reproducing reality in video, pictures, sound, and text, MPEG seeks to verify the source of media.

So, they aim to sort of separate actual wheat from fake wheat. Never mind the chaff. (Actually, AI moved past producing chaff long ago, if we can borrow an analogy from everyone’s favorite way of talking about differentiating originals from AI-generative simulacra, threshing).

In terms of nailing down the origins of media, market cohesion is the goal, says Raad.

“We are in favor of using the C2PA specification in this (content authentication) domain where possible. There are alternative approaches that have been contributed to MPEG, which bring their own value, but we see significant support for the use of C2PA in multiple markets and we favor MPEG taking advantage of this technology instead of attempting to develop an alternative.”

C2PA’s short for Coalition for Content Provenance and Authentication. The group, a joint effort backed by big guns in the media industry, develops “an open technical standard providing publishers, creators, and consumers the ability to trace the origin of different types of media,” according to the C2PA web site.

Raad sees content authenticity as very important. He remarks that the issue needs to be addressed “in as short a time as possible at MPEG.”

‍DRM‍

Digital rights management, or DRM, is also on the docket.

“We will also follow the development of a potential standard solution to recent DRM-related attacks,” says Raad.

“Unfortunately there has been a serious exposure of the deficiencies of MPEG common encryption (MPEG-CENC). And a number of significant market leaders are looking at how MPEG can address these problems.

“This is an activity in its early stages, but it is important to participate in it.”‍

Video compression, new DASH edition‍

In the world of next-generation video compression activity, MPEG has moved into the early “requirements and use cases” stage.

“The next video compression standard is expected to have an AI component in it, in a similar way to the JPEG-AI standard,” says Raad.

“The next video compression standard is expected to have an AI component in it, in a similar way to the JPEG-AI standard,” say Raad.

“This will be a significant departure from the fundamental architecture used in all the previous compression standards,” he adds. “Although we, as a company, are not focused on developing compression algorithms, the relevance of these to the market we serve means that we have to be mindful of developments in that space. For many people at MPEG 149 the most important topic will be the next video compression standard, and what role AI will play in that standard.”

The next edition of the DASH standard, the sixth, looms, too, which (according to Raad) will contain “significant updates.” Raad notes that there are other SDOs (standards development organizations) that depend upon the finalization of this edition to make progress on their work.

Online vs being there

Huddling with peers in Geneva in January, talking streaming specs over hot cocoa? Sounds wintry and cozy.

Being unable to be at the conference physically this time slightly bothers Raad.

“Most MPEG meetings have good connectivity, so presenting and participating in the meeting (online) is workable. But the face-to-face component of the meeting is important,” he says. “The side discussions get missed online.

“It’s possible to participate in the formal aspects of the meeting online. But the informal aspects are also valuable, and these get missed when you’re not there.”

Adds Raad, “I’m fond of many MPEG attendees, and I’ve known them for a long time. Meeting them in person is always nice.”