[foms] Fwd: [RTW] Fwd: I-D Action:draft-zong-httpstreaming-gap-analysis-01.txt

[Mark Watson]

Hi Christopher,

Yes, we decided to get involved in MPEG DASH as it seemed to be the most advanced standards effort which came close to meeting the requirements we have. The work there is 1.5+ years ahead, looking from the start date of the baseline taken from 3GPP.

MPEG is a lot more than H.264. For example, the mp4 file format is quite successful. Also, I'm not sure who you mean by "they": the composition of the DASH working group is very different (people and companies) from the composition of the video group.

On IPR, it's clear to me and I believe the other main participants in DASH that if anyone tried to charge license fees for that specifically it would kill it immediately, because there are plenty of proprietary alternatives. There may well be IPR issues with adaptive HTTP streaming that we will all have to deal with in the future, but they are independent of which standards group does the work.

Current status at IETF is that there's an informal "Bar BoF" at the current meeting. I doubt there will be consensus to work on this there, not least because there would undoubtedly not be harmony between specifications without considerable effort.

...Mark

On Nov 3, 2010, at 2:46 PM, Christopher Blizzard wrote:

> On 11/3/2010 2:32 PM, Mark Watson wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> It's relevant, but that document does contain quite a number of errors and omissions - not least that it is very out-of-date with respect to MPEG DASH. Some of these have been pointed out on the IETF list discussing this issue (
>> 
> 
> Are you part of the DASH group?
> 
> There was an earlier question about DASH and if we knew about it and about MPEG in general which I meant to respond to.
> 
> I can't speak for others but I can't say that I haven't been involved there.  I'm generally skeptical of MPEG because they failed in their attempt to make an H.264 baseline available on an RF basis.  (One of their original goals, as I understand it.)  It's clear they are relevant.  It's not clear to me if I should spend any time or effort working with them, even on something like DASH.
> 
> So if the IETF is working in that space it's fine with me, especially if there's some harmony between various specs.
> 
> --Chris