Irony of the day: Microsoft gets award for developing AVC codec!

[Grubert]

Microsoft and Sony Celebrate Joint Video Team Standards Committee Primetime Engineering Emmy
Thursday September 4, 8:00 am ET
US Academy of Television Arts & Science Honored JVT Committee for Development of the High Profile for H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC


REDMOND, Wash. and TOKYO, Sept. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft and Sony celebrate the Joint Video Team (JVT) Committee's receipt of a 2008 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award for its work on the development of the High Profile of the H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard. Both Microsoft and Sony, as members of the JVT, were contributors to the High Profile of H.264/MPEG-4AVC, a standard specification which enables High Definition images in the H.264/AVC video coding technology used by a variety of companies today to deliver high definition video over satellite, broadcast and cable television as well as Blu-ray Disc, mobile phones and Internet Protocol television (IPTV).
The JVT is a standardization team comprised of members from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The group was formed in 2001 by the ITU Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG).

Nine companies, including Microsoft and Sony, were specifically recognized as key contributors to this work within the JVT. The award was presented at a ceremony in Hollywood, California on August 23rd, and was received by Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU's standardization bureau, and Scott Jameson, Chair of the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee on Information Technology (ISO/IEC JTC 1), together with representatives of the JVT management team.

"This award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences recognizes a broad and collaborative effort that has yielded significant technical achievements in entertainment technology," said Gary Sullivan, Video Architect at Microsoft, who has served as chairman of the Joint Video Team Standards Committee since its inception in 2001. "Considering the extensive historical development of the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile specification, many more than the nine named companies deserve credit for their contributions to this standard and its resulting applications. However, Sony and the other recognized companies were certainly key contributors to the development of the standard, and should be applauded for their contributions."

"The H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard enables the delivery and storage of HDTV video signal efficiently, has been adopted by many applications, and has become a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the HDTV world. It was achieved by the diligent efforts of all the JVT members and by the leadership of the JVT chairs -- Gary Sullivan, Thomas Wiegand and Ajay Luthra," said Teruhiko Suzuki, Distinguished Engineer at Sony Corporation, who has contributed to the JVT committee as AHG chair and project editor since its inception in 2001. "The achievement of the JVT work is outstanding and well deserved of a Primetime Emmy Engineering Award. We would like to congratulate all JVT members for this notable accomplishment."

The Emmy Engineering Award goes to an individual, company, or organization for developments in engineering that are either so extensive an improvement on existing methods, or so innovative in nature, that they materially affect the transmission, recording or reception of television.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080904/lath026.html?.v=101

They must feel like the band Simple Minds felt about being famous and remembered because of that Breakfast Club song.

[Maximus]

Well, JVT should be celebrating. That's a lot of companies, I have no idea why Microsoft and Sony are singled out, the biggest contributors to the codec are Thompson, Sony and Panasonic/JVC. MS are waaay down on the list.

[darkpoet25]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Well, JVT should be celebrating. That's a lot of companies, I have no idea why Microsoft and Sony are singled out, the biggest contributors to the codec are Thompson, Sony and Panasonic/JVC. MS are waaay down on the list.

Could it be that Microsoft and Sony are two of the most recognized electronics brands around right now? I still don't see how Microsoft got an award for the AVC codec, when they developed VC-1. It may have to do with PC useage of a Blu Ray drive?

[Josh]

They're all taking turns patting themselves on the back:

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1633

[quexos]

Well with higher technologies it has to be more often than not, expected that new developments will be made by more than one company in all kinds of joint ventures. What piece of High Tech is nowadays made 100% from one single company ? none

[JadedRaverLA]

It's really too bad they didn't include a few quotes from Amir (formerly of MS) about how much better VC-1 is than AVC. It would have been great to show how quickly Microsoft can go from bashing something to pretending they were one of the two leading developers of it.

Next week: Nintendo and Microsoft will accept an award for the design of the Wii.

(EDIT: I just read the "article," and, naturally it's really just a joint press release. Odd that Sony would do a joint press release with Microsoft on AVC development, though.)

[Bobby Henderson]

Odd that Sony would do a joint press release with Microsoft on AVC development, though.

Maybe it's something Microsoft forced Sony to humble itself over in order to get MS to compile Blu-ray friendly code into the kernals of WinXP and Vista.

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

Maybe it's something Microsoft forced Sony to humble itself over in order to get MS to compile Blu-ray friendly code into the kernals of WinXP and Vista.

Very possible. Actually, though, is Microsoft still even doing further development on their VC-1 encoding tools for Blu-ray? They may be essentially allowing Sony to push their AVC encoder in exchange for making Microsoft seem like they had always been on board the AVC bandwagon. Whatever the case, I'm sure there's an interesting story behind both company's intentions.

[Monkey]

But what about Amir and VC-1?

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by Monkey

But what about Amir and VC-1?

Their "reward" was being shown the door. Quite fitting in that case.

[Anthony P]

Could it be that Microsoft and Sony are two of the most recognized electronics brands around right now? I still don't see how Microsoft got an award for the AVC codec, when they developed VC-1. It may have to do with PC useage of a Blu Ray drive?

no one develops CODECs different companies developed different algorithms for different parts. MS, Sony ( since they are the two in the headlines) as well as all he others put in their .02$ . MS probably used the same parts for VC-1 but for VC-1 some of the other parts are different. That is what is so funny about the CODEC war people (X is better then Y and everyone should use X), in the end most video codecs are mostly the same with each one tweaked for different scenarios (and since we get all possible scenarios none is better then the other)

[PS3-Playb3yond]

What? Microsoft developed AVC codec? O_o Well, at least Sont is a part of it.