ITU - Telecommunications Standardization Sector
STUDY GROUP 16
Video Coding Experts Group (Question 15)
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Third Meeting: Eibsee, Bavaria, Germany, 2-5 December, 1997	Document  Q15-C-31
Filename: q15c31.doc
Date generated: 12/01/97	

Question:	Q.15/16	
Source:	Stephan Wenger
TU Berlin, Sekr. FR6-3
Franklinstr. 28-29
D-10587 Berlin, Germany	
Tel:
Fax:
Email:	
+49 172 3000 813
+49 30 31425156
stewe@cs.tu-berlin.de	
Title:	Software annoucement: Mbone tool vic supporting H.263 V.2	
Purpose:	Information	
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The Communication and Operation system research group at the CS department of TU Berlin is proud to announce the alpha release of the Mbone tool vic supporting H.263 V.2.  The source code, as well as precompiled binaries for Solaris are available from http://kbs.cs.tu-berlin.de.  The package also includes a modified UBC H.263+ encoder, which supports Video Redundancy Coding.

This software is primarily intended to serve as one of the two required implementations of the RTP payload spec for H.263 v.2 and as a test tool for our research in this area.  However, it’s performance is so outstanding compared to the current Mbone tools used, that we expect a fast deployment within the Mbone community.

Vic is the most frequently used public domain videoconferencing tool for the Mbone environment today.  It’s current version supports, amongst others, video coding according to H.261 (Intra mode only) and Motion JPEG.  Although more efficient coding mechanisms, e. g. H.261 w/ Inter mode, are also possible, they are currently not used for Mbone broadcasts because of the bad picture quality due to packet losses in the Internet.

Our software package includes
•	Vic with an included H.263+ decoder (based on the UBC decoder, enhanced by TU Berlin to include Annex N (no back channel only), the RTP payload implementation based on the current spec,
•	A send tool, which send a H.263+ data stream over the Internet (Point-to-Point or Multicast) by applying the packetization and connecting to the receiving vic(s), and
•	A VRC capable H.263 V.2 coder based on the actual UBC implementation.

Our next plans are to integrate Slices and Independently Segmented decoding (which will allow the efficient transmission of larger frame sizes than QCIF) as well as the integration of the UBC coder.  For this, we work closely together with the Image Coding group of UBC.

Readers are encouraged to download the current alpha release now.  We expect to have a version supporting real-time coding of grabbed frames, Slices and ISR by January.  We will announce this version to the Q.15 experts via the mailing list.