NIST HOSTS MPEG WEB SITE.

As of Dec. 15, 2000, the Information Access Division is hosting the online Web site for the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) of the International Organization for Standards (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

The data site includes working group documents, contributions from industry, experimental data and associated software, and output documents from the MPEG committee. This allows committee members to upload their contribution documents and share information and working documents during the standards development process.

Future plans for the MPEG Web site include a management information system to enable users to search and retrieve documents from the system, an automated document upload and register process, virus checking on incoming documents, the ability to track membership and ad hoc groups and dialogs, and the capacity to allow individual passwords.

MPEG is the working group of ISO/IEC in charge of developing standards for coded representation of digital audio and video. Established in 1988, the group has produced MPEG-1, the standard on which such products as Video CD and MP3 are based, MPEG-2, the standard on which such products as digital television set-top boxes and DVD are based, and MPEG-4, the standard for multimedia for the Web and mobility. The current focus is on MPEG-7, Multimedia Content Description Interface, with completion scheduled for summer 2001. Work on a new standard MPEG-21, Multimedia Framework, started in June 2000 and has already produced a Draft Technical Report and two Calls for Proposals. The new Web site is expected to help enable easier collaboration within the MPEG community in developing new standards.