MPEG-2 Vendors Organize Interactive MPEG-2 Forum To Deliver Ubiquitous Broadcast-Quality Interactive Video

Promoting broadcast-quality, interactive video communications based on MPEG-2 is behind the formation of the Interactive MPEG-2 Forum, a cooperative organization of twelve vendors of MPEG-2 products and a major university. Announced yesterday at the TeleconWest Convention in Anaheim, California, the forum's initial mission is to facilitate the interoperability of products using the MPEG-2 compression standards. The group will publish interoperability recommendations for interactive MPEG-2 applications by mid-year 2000.""Today's MPEG-2 products deliver multi-site conferences with full-resolution, TV-quality pictures and face-to-face interactivity, within a framework of easy-to-use control systems,"" said Thomas B. Bennett, Director of Audio-Visual Services at the University of Akron, and the group's chairman. ""Since we are the central institution for a large regional Distance Learning effort based on the MPEG-2 standard, we're very interested in the progress of this technology.""Interactive broadband MPEG-2 systems are enjoying increased acceptance today in applications such as Distance Learning, Telemedicine, Telejustice, and general conferencing. In these settings, the powerful capabilities available in broadband systems and networks are a better fit than thetechnology-limited communications available from older narrowband systems. The growing number of MPEG-2 deployments leverage the expanding availability and declining prices of broadband networks - a trend fueled by the explosive growth of the Internet.""It became apparent to us early on that interoperability between vendors was crucial for us to enjoy the substantial benefits of interactive MPEG-2 and expand our reach. We're pleased to chair this important industry initiative, which will pay off in better delivery of education services,"" said Bennett of the University of Akron. The initial focus of the IM2 Forum is to facilitate the usage of interactive MPEG-2 communications by avoiding the interoperability problems that hampered the early deployments of the narrowband technologies. To this end, technical representatives from the member companies began meeting in June to define a framework for interactive MPEG-2 interoperability. To support this effort, an MPEG-2 Interoperability Laboratory is to be established shortly at the University of Akron.In addition to the University of Akron, the charter members of the IM2 Forum include BroadBand Networks Corp., Crestron, FVC.COM, General DataComm, Inc., IBM, InnovaCom Inc., Litton Network Access Systems, Lucent Digital Video, Minerva Systems, Inc., Synergy by Panja, Starvision Multimedia Corp., and Tektronix, Inc. Membership is open to additional vendors participating in the interactive MPEG-2 marketplace.Source: IM2 Forum

For membership information, contact Tom Bennett at the below internet contact.