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     This story was printed from CdrInfo.com,

     located at http://www.cdrinfo.com.

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The MPEG Industry Forum (MPEGIF) today announced the launch of a new 6th round of interoperability testing, in which 30 companies will test the latest MPEG-4 Audio and Visual codecs.

The codecs featured in the tests will include Advanced Video Coding (AVC, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10 and H.264) and MPEG-4 High Efficiency AAC Audio. These next generation codecs are being used in a wide range of new products including Standard Definition and High Definition video encoders and set top boxes, portable digital broadcast receivers, video-equipped mobile phones as well as a number of other new consumer electronic devices.

Interoperability testing is of paramount importance and tremendous value in product development with open standards, such as MPEG-4, in the international marketplace. Companies come together to test their codec implementations in order to ensure that products will work together, and any interoperability problems are resolved in a collaborative way. The fact that 30 MPEGIF member companies have joined the current test round is clear evidence that products based on these new and efficient codecs are playing a major role in the next generation digital media industry.

The new test round is now underway and will continue until December, culminating in a face-to-face interoperability event sponsored and hosted by the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) and held jointly with the International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) and MPEGIF. This historic event will be the first time all three organizations have met together for shared testing.

"MPEG-4 AVC and HE AAC are not a fantasy, real products have arrived," commented Sebastian Moeritz, President of MPEGIF. "Many are available today, many more are being released shortly, and this new interoperability test round will demonstrate and confirm that the technology is ready for widespread adoption and deployment. For more than four years, MPEGIF has been providing the best possible world-class environment for this type of testing to our members through our Interoperability Working Group."

"The range and number of companies taking part in this interoperability round speaks volumes for how MPEG-4 AVC and AAC are now being readied for operators around the world," said David Price, Vice President of MPEGIF. "Service providers are starting to take AVC today into real revenue-bearing deployments."

Companies that participate in the new interoperability test round will be eligible to participate in the new MPEGIF Logo Qualification Program. In this program, MPEGIF provides a widely recognizable mark, the "MP4" Logo, to be displayed on qualified products. The Logo, issued by MPEGIF, is a sign of quality, and indicates that the product has been tested in at least one round of MPEGIF Interoperability testing, and that it has also passed additional test criteria defined under this program. Besides carrying the "MP4" Logo, the products are also listed in a "Qualified Products Directory" on the MPEGIF Logo Qualification web site. For more information on the Logo Program, please visit www.logo.mpegif.org.