ITU-T
hosted the 36th JPEG Meeting, Geneva
July 18-22. The Joint Picture Experts Group (JPEG), formed many years ago by
both ITU-T Study
Group 16 and ISO/IEC JTC1 SG 29, is best known for its JPEG and JPEG-2000
image compression standards.
In ITU-T, Study Group 16 is home to all media coding work, such as the H-Series
of Recommendations, and includes work done together with ISO/IEC's JPEG, and
JPEG-2000 groups in image compression, as well as work done with MPEG in
developing video compression standards such as H.264. ISO/IEC JTC1 SG 29 is the
focal point in ISO/IEC JTC1 for image, video and audio compression standards.
The meeting surveyed the progress of technologies broached in the previous JPEG
meeting, held in Lisbon
in March 2005, including image security in JPEG-2000 which is being addressed
by JPEG’s JPSEC ad hoc group. The group is developing a standard that will
enable protected images to retain JPEG-2000 system features, such as
scalability. This new feature within JPEG images will allow international
distribution of digital images containing encrypted content, while still
retaining the ability to adaptively deliver content for a wide variety of
devices with varying display capabilities.
The meeting also followed up on JPEG’s Digital Cinema ad hoc group and its
advances in developing profiles for JPEG-2000 digital cinema applications. The
Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) organization has adopted JPEG-2000 for future
distribution of digital movies to theatres. JPEG is working closely with the
Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) to standardize
aspects of this future architecture.
The Video and Image Coding and Applications (VICA) workshop, 22-23
July 2005, which followed the ITU-T-hosted JPEG meeting, aimed to build upon
the presence of JPEG and ITU-T SG 16 experts (who met July 26 - August 5 this
year). The workshop reviewed existing video and image compression standards,
their current applications, and future directions in the field. See related news
for more details on the workshop.