Advances in Video Compression and the Emerging JVT/H.26L/AVC Standard

Significant improvements have recently been demonstrated in video compression capability. These advances have been brought about by improvements in algorithmic compression techniques along with a relaxation of the bounds on on practical computing power. These advances have converged in the standardization project of the Joint Video Team (JVT) formed by the joined forces of the ITU-T VCEG and ISO/IEC MPEG organizations. This project, following up on advances demonstrated by the ITU-T H.26L project, will soon result in a new international standard for video coding that has the capability of approximately doubling coding efficiency relative to the previous generation of video coding standards established just a few years ago. The new standard will achieve this performance edge across a very wide variety of applications ranging from low bit rate, low-resolution video to standard-definition DVD/TV applications and beyond. The plenary talk will trace the progress of video compression techniques through time as embodied in international standards. It will describe some of the reasoning behind the design of modern video coding techniques, and will describe the status of standardization and deployment of the emerging JVT/H.26L/AVC video coding standard.

Gary J. Sullivan - received his Ph.D. and Engineer degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1991. He has been the Rapporteur of Advanced Video Coding in the ITU-T and the leader of its Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) (ITU-T SG16 Q.6) for about six years. He was then appointed in March of 2001 as the chairman of the video work in the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11). Bringing the efforts of these two organizations together, he was most recently appointed in December of 2001 as the chairman of the Joint Video Team (JVT) between VCEG and MPEG for the finalization of the new JVT/H.26L video coding standard, which is targeted for final approval around the end of 2002. He is also the editor of ITU-T Recommendation H.263, and he was the chief editor and chairman for the recent H.263+ and H.263++ projects for enhancement of that standard.

At Microsoft Corporation, he is a program manager for video technologies and standards in the Windows eHome Platforms group. He has been the lead designer of the DirectX^® Video Acceleration API/DDI feature of the Microsoft Windows^® operating system platform. Prior to joining Microsoft in 1999, he was the Manager of Communication Core Research at PictureTel Corporation, the quondam world leader in videoconferencing communication. He was previously a Howard Hughes Fellow and Member of the Technical Staff in the Advanced Systems Division of Hughes Aircraft Corporation and was a terrain-following radar system software engineer for Texas Instruments.

His research interests and areas of publication include image and video compression, rate-distortion optimization, motion representation, scalar and vector quantization, error and packet loss resilient video coding, digital cinema, and video streaming.