Meeting Report of the IEEE Benelux Chapter and the Eindhoven Embedded Systems Institute (EESI) about the Int. Workshop on

"Embedded Video Streaming Technology (MPEG-4) and the Internet"

December 20, 2001.

Venue: EESI, University of Technology Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

This technical workshop was organized by the IEEE Benelux Chapter on Consumer Electronics and the Eindhoven Embedded System Institute (EESI). The workshop was co-sponsored by CMG Eindhoven BV, The Netherlands. The theme about the mutual relation between the new compression standard MPEG-4 and the Internet appeared to be an interesting theme as the attracted audience was above 100 people. The meeting took place in the newly renovated Laplace building of the University of Technology Eindhoven, where the EESI is situated. Organization was in the hands of Prof.dr. Peter H.N. de With (CMG Eindhoven and Univ. Technology Eindhoven) and Mrs. Franka van Neerven (EESI), while Mr. Peter Peters (EESI) provided technical support.

The program consisted of five lectures; some of the lecturers were active in Internet or MPEG development themselves. The following lectures were presented.

Chairman: Prof.dr. Peter H.N. de With (CMG Eindhoven, TU/e EESI)

1. Ir. Jan van der Meer (Philips Consumer Electronics, MP4Net)

"Developments and Overview of MPEG-4 Streaming"

2. Prof.dr. John W. Woods and I.V. Bajic

(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA)

"Domain-based Multiple Description Coding of Images and Video"

3. Prof.dr. Han A.J. Vinck (University of Essen, Germany)

"Transmission and coding problems for (e.g. IP) networks"

4. Dr. Mihaela van der Schaar (Philips Research Briarcliff, USA)

"Fine Granular Scalability in MPEG-4 for wireless streaming"

5. Dr. Warner ten Kate (Philips Research Labs, Eindhoven)

"Streaming: Transporting Continuous Media and the Internet"

The opening lecture was given by Ir. Van der Meer who was personally involved in MPEG development for more than 10 years. The lecture provided an excellent overview of recent developments around MPEG-4 and contained some interesting video demonstrations showing a number of applications of MPEG-4 coding. Prof. Woods presented a key lecture on multiple-description coding of video signals. These descriptions, using wavelets for signal representations, enable similar parts of the video information (when added up giving the full data) to support a high robustness for loss of data. This is important because the Internet proves to be less reliable than other communication channels. Prof. Vinck gave a lecture about channel techniques that can be applied in IP-based networks, thereby addressing the channel coding side of the robustness problem. These techniques involved e.g. special modulation or smart channel coding. Dr. Van der Schaar obtained recently a Ph.D. degree for her work on the Fine-Granular Scalability (FGS) extensions of MPEG-4 coding. She has directly contributed to the standard. The FGS concept utilizes a base and enhancement layer, where losses in the enhancement layer usually have limited propagation. The base layer contains an acceptable quality under all circumstances. Dr. Ten Kate emphasized all the elements required for robust packetization techniques in his contribution. He also gave audio streaming demonstrations where fluctuations e.g. in timing from the network were covered by processing. Prof. Immink, chairman of the IEEE Benelux CE Chapter, remembered in his closing speech that this was the first primary event of the Chapter and thanked all speakers and audience for their attendance.

This meeting was a success and informal interaction between the participating people was supported by the excellent facilities of the University Eindhoven that can be reached easily. The tutorial nature of several lectures attracted a large audience. The proceedings of this workshop are bundled in a nice booklet and contain recent papers and/or slide copies of the presentations and some additional background material. They can be obtained at the EESI for 15 Euros, by mailing to F.v.Neerven@tue.nl.

Prof. Peter H.N. de With,

Eindhoven, January 2002.