MPEG Industry Forum calls it a day
 

Rec'd via email:

To All of Our Colleagues that have been involved with or connected to the MPEG Industry Forum over the past 10 years.

We have "declared victory" and the activities of the MPEG Industry Forum are now being wound up. By the end of this month all remaining assets will be put into the hands of the Open IPTV Forum where you can access these through MPEGIF - Open IPTV Forum. When this forum was first initiated in June 2000 it was at a time of great fragmentation in this industry. As silicon , continued to advance alternatives to MPEG-2 emerged in many forms. Our task was to educate and evangelize an emerging standards based solution that became known as MPEG-4 Part 10, aka AVC, aka H.264. Our efforts drove in many directions including many informational events - the MPEG IF Master Class series - and, crucially, a series of important interoperability test rounds combined with some very active tech-lists (that will now be closed on July 1st). Slowly but surely H.264 gained mind share and then market share and today is clearly the dominant codec of choice replacing MPEG-2 around the world. Hence the declaration of victory.

We would like to take this opportunity to wholeheartedly thank everyone who has contributed to the Forum over these past 10 years. This includes past Presidents, Rob Koenen and Sebastian Moeritz, current board members Yuval Fisher and Sean McCarthy, past board members including Takuyo Kogure, Leonardo Chiariglione, Tim Schaaff, Rich Mavrogeanes, Shawn Ambwani, Jan van der Meer, Sang-Il Park, Peter Schirling, and Stefan Geyersberger, all the people who contributed by speaking at our Master Classes too many to list here, all the many sponsoring companies that have made our MasterClasses and Networking Parties such a huge success, the Open IPTV Forum - the custodians of our legacy, and last, but by no means least, our heartfelt thanks go to the good people at AMSL especially Nicola Wissler, who has managed the secretariat function of this forum over the past 6 years.

Our sincerest thanks to you all,

David Price (Ericsson): President
Prof. Sebastian Moeritz (St. Petersburg University): Chairman
Dr. Yuval Fisher (RGB Networks): Board Member
Dr. Sean McCarthy: (Motorola): Board Member

Re: MPEG Industry Forum calls it a day
 

To be clear, standardization work on new codecs continues in ISO/IEC.
MPEG

Also, MPEG-LA, which handles licensing pools, continues.
MPEG LA - The Standard for Standards

The MPEG Industry Forum is a marketing/promotional group. That's the part that's stopping.

I wouldn't want people to get the idea that there will be no new MPEG standards.

Re: MPEG Industry Forum calls it a day
 

This also doesn't mean the codecs will be open-sourced or GPLed. The MPEG-LA will still have control over licensing for codecs like MPEG-2 and H.264.