ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29, entitled Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information, is a standardization subcommittee of the Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). It develops and facilitates international standards, technical reports, and technical specifications within the field of audio, picture, multimedia, and hypermedia information coding. SC 29 includes the well-known JPEG and MPEG experts groups, and the standards developed by SC 29 have been recognized by nine Emmy Awards.
The international secretariat of SC 29 is the Japanese Industrial Standards Committee (JISC) of Japan.[1]
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 was established in 1991, when the subcommittee took over the tasks of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 8. Its title, "Coded representation of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information", has not been changed since its inception. Within its first year, SC 29 established four working groups, a secretariat, and working group conveners, and held its first plenary in Tokyo, Japan. Its founding chair was Hiroshi Yasuda of NTT, who continued to serve in that capacity through 1999. Subsequent chairs have been Hiroshi Watanabe of NTT (2000–2006),[2] Kohtaro Asai of Mitsubishi Electric (2007–2017),[3] Teruhiko Suzuki of Sony (2018–2020),[4] and Gary Sullivan of Dolby Labs (2021–present, originally from Microsoft before moving to Dolby in 2023).
In 2003, SC 29 was the inaugural recipient of the Lawrence D. Eicher Award, an award that has been given by ISO to only one technical committee or subcommittee each year, which "recognizes the significant contribution and superior performance of an ISO technical committee (TC) or subcommittee (SC) to the development of ISO International Standards".[5] [6]
As of May 2024, SC 29 is responsible for 617 currently published standards and updates of standards, including standards for JPEG (ISO/IEC 10918-1), JPEG-2000 (ISO/IEC 15444-1), MPEG-1 (ISO/IEC 11172-1), MPEG-2 (ISO/IEC 13818), MPEG-4 (ISO/IEC 14996), MPEG-4 AVC (ISO/IEC 14496-10), JBIG (ISO/IEC 11544), MHEG-5 (ISO/IEC 13522-5), etc.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 has received nine Emmy Awards in recognition of the standards it has developed.
The scope of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 includes the development of standards for "efficient coding of digital representations of images, audio and moving pictures" and other digital information, along with supporting media systems and associated quality of experience and performance metrics.[22]
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 has eight active working groups (WGs), each of which carries out specific tasks in standards development within scope of the subcommittee.[23] It also contains five advisory groups (AG) for coordination and to provide expertise on particular subjects. Working groups and advisory groups can be created or disbanded by decisions of the subcommittee and are ordinarily chartered for renewable three-year terms. The focus of each working group is described in the group's terms of reference. The active advisory groups and working groups of SC 29 are:[22]
| Group | Working area | Convenor |
|---|---|---|
| AG 1 | Chair support team and management | Dr. Andrew Tescher (Microsoft, United States) |
| AG 2 | MPEG Technical coordination | Prof. Joern Ostermann (University of Hannover, Germany) |
| AG 3 | MPEG Liaison and communication | Prof. Kyuheon Kim (Kyung Hee University, Korea) |
| AG 4 | JPEG and MPEG coordination | Prof. Peter Schelkens (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium) |
| AG 5 | MPEG Visual quality assessment | Dr. Mathias Wien (RWTH Aachen University, Germany) |
| WG 1 | JPEG Coding of digital representations of images | Prof. Touradj Ebrahimi (EPFL, Switzerland) |
| WG 2 | MPEG Technical requirements | Dr. Igor Curcio (Nokia, Finland) |
| WG 3 | MPEG Systems | Dr. Youngkwon Lim (Samsung, Korea) |
| WG 4 | MPEG Video coding | Prof. Lu Yu (Zhejiang University, China) |
| WG 5 | MPEG Joint Video Experts Team with ITU-T Study Group 16 (a.k.a. JVET) | Prof. Jens-Rainer Ohm (RWTH Aachen University, Germany) |
| WG 6 | MPEG Audio coding | Prof. Thomas Sporer (Fraunhofer IDMT, Germany) |
| WG 7 | MPEG 3D Graphics and haptics coding | Prof. Marius Preda (Institut Mines-Télécom SudParis, France) |
| WG 8 | MPEG Genomic coding | Dr. Marco Mattavelli (EPFL, Switzerland) |
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 works in close collaboration with a number of other organizations or subcommittees, both internal and external to ISO or IEC, in order to avoid conflicting or duplicative work. Organizations internal to ISO or IEC that collaborate with or are in liaison to SC 29 include:[24] [25] [26]
Some organizations external to ISO or IEC that collaborate with or are in liaison to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29, include:[24]
Countries pay a fee to be a member of an ISO/IEC JTC 1 subcommittee.[27]
The 31 "P" (participating) members of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakstan, Korea (Republic of), Lebanon, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, the United States, and Turkey.[1]
The 17 "O" (observing) members of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 are: Argentina, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, and South Africa.[1]
As of May 2024, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 is currently responsible for 617 currently published standards within the field of coded representation of audio, picture, multimedia, and hypermedia information, including the following selected examples:[22] [28] [29] [30] [31]
| data-sort-type="number" width="14%" | ISO/IEC Standard | Title | Status | Description | WG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| data-sort-value="10918-01" | Information technology – Digital compression and coding of continuous-tone still images: Requirements and guidelines | Published (1994) | Specifies:[32]
Provides guidance on how to implement these processes in practice; | 1 | |
| data-sort-value="10918-05" | ISO/IEC 10918-5 | Information technology – Digital compression and coding of continuous-tone still images: JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF) | Published (2013) | Specifies the JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF)[33] | 1 |
| data-sort-value="11544" | Information technology – Coded representation of picture and audio information – Progressive bi-level image compression | Published (1993) | Defines a bit-preserving (lossless) compression method for coding image bit-planes and is particularly suitable for two-tone (including black and white) images[34] | 1 | |
| data-sort-value="15444-01" | ISO/IEC 15444-1 | Information technology – JPEG 2000 image coding system: Core coding system | Published (2004) | Defines a set of lossless and lossy compression methods for coding bi-level, continuous-tone, grey-scale, palletized color, or continuous-tone color digital still images[35] [36] | 1 |
| data-sort-value="29199-01" | ISO/IEC TR 29199-1 | Information technology – JPEG XR image coding system – Part 1: System architecture | Published (2011) | Provides a technical overview and informative guidelines for applications of JPEG XR image coding as specified in Part 2 of ISO/IEC 29199[37] | 1 |
| data-sort-value="29199-02" | ISO/IEC 29199-2 | Information technology – JPEG XR image coding system – Part 2: Image coding specification | Published (2012) | Specifies a coding format, known as JPEG XR, which is designed primarily for use for continuous-tone photographic content[38] | 1 |
| data-sort-value="11172-01" | Information technology – Coding of moving pictures and associated audio for digital storage media at up to about 1,5 Mbit/s – Part 1: Systems | Published (1993) | Specifies the system layer of the coding of video and audio as specified in Parts 2 and 3 of ISO/IEC 11172 known as MPEG-1, which supports the synchronization of multiple compressed streams on playback, the interleaving of multiple compressed streams into a single stream, the initialization of buffering for playback start up, continuous buffer management, and time identification[39] | 11 (now 3) | |
| data-sort-value="13818-01" | ISO/IEC 13818-1 | Information technology – Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information – Part 1: Systems | Published (1996) | Specifies the system layer of coding, and is meant to support the combination of video and audio coding methods defined in Parts 2 and 3 of ISO/IEC 13818, known as MPEG-2[40] | 11 (now 3) |
| data-sort-value="13818-02" | ISO/IEC 13818-2 | Information technology – Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information – Part 2: Video | Published (1996) | Specifies a compression format for interlaced and progressive-scan video[41] | 11 (now 5 = JVET) |
| data-sort-value="13818-03" | ISO/IEC 13818-3 | Information technology – Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information – Part 3: Audio | Published (1995) | Specifies an MPEG-1 audio backward compatible audio compression format[42] | 11 (now 6) |
| data-sort-value="13818-07" | ISO/IEC 13818-7 | Information technology – Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information – Part 7: Advanced Audio Coding | Published (1997) | Specifies an audio compression format, known as AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)[43] | 11 (now 6) |
| data-sort-value="14496-01" | ISO/IEC 14496-1 | Information technology – Coding of audio-visual objects – Part 1: Systems | Published (1999) | Specifies the system-level functionalities for the communication of interactive audio-visual scenes[44] | 11 (now 3) |
| data-sort-value="14496-02" | Information technology – Coding of audio-visual objects – Part 2: Visual | Published (1999) | Provides the specification of:[45]
| 11 (now 4) | |
| data-sort-value="14496-03" | Information technology – Coding of audio-visual objects – Part 3: Audio | Published (1999) | Specifies a format for audio object[46] | 11 (now 6) | |
| data-sort-value="14496-10" | ISO/IEC 14496-10 (available free) | Information technology – Coding of audio-visual objects – Part 10: Advanced Video Coding | Published (2003) | Specifies advanced video coding for the coding of audio-visual objects, known as AVC (Advanced Video Coding)[47] | 11 (now 5 = JVET) |
| data-sort-value="14496-22" | Information technology Coding of audio-visual objects Part 22: Open Font Format | Published (2009) | Specifies the Open Font Format (OFF),[48] the ISO derivative of the OpenType font format | 11 (now 3) | |
| data-sort-value="23003-01" | ISO/IEC 23003-1 | Published (2007) | Describes the MPEG Surround standard which is meant for multi-channel audio compression[49] | 11 (now 6) | |
| data-sort-value="23003-03" | ISO/IEC 23003-3 | Published (2012) | Specifies a unified speech and audio codec that is capable of having coding signals with an arbitrary mix of speech and audio content[50] | 11 (now 6) | |
| data-sort-value="13522-05" | ISO/IEC 13522-5 | Information technology – Coding of multimedia and hypermedia information – Part 5: Support for base-level interactive applications | Published (1997) | Specifies the semantics and final-form interchange syntax for MHEG-5 objects[51] | 12 (disbanded) |
