At its 149th meeting, MPEG promoted three standards (among others) to Final Draft International Standard (FDIS), driving innovation in next-generation, immersive audio and video coding, and adaptive streaming:
- MPEG-I Immersive Audio enables realistic 3D audio with six degrees of freedom (6DoF).
- MPEG Immersive Video (Second Edition) introduces advanced coding tools for volumetric video.
- MPEG-DASH (Sixth Edition) enhances low-latency streaming, content steering, and interactive media.
MPEG ratifies MPEG-I Immersive Audio
At the 149th MPEG meeting, MPEG Audio Coding (WG 6) promoted ISO/IEC 23090-4 MPEG-I immersive audio to Final Draft International Standard (FDIS), marking a major milestone in the development of next-generation audio technology.
MPEG-I immersive audio is a groundbreaking standard designed for the compact and highly realistic representation of spatial sound. Tailored for Metaverse applications, including Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality (VR/AR/MR), it enables seamless real-time rendering of interactive 3D audio with six degrees of freedom (6DoF). Users can not only turn their heads in any direction (pitch/yaw/roll) but also move freely through virtual environments (x/y/z), creating an unparalleled sense of immersion.
True to MPEG’s legacy, this standard is optimized for efficient distribution – even over networks with severe bitrate constraints. Unlike proprietary VR/AR audio solutions, MPEG-I Immersive Audio ensures broad interoperability, long-term stability, and suitability for both streaming and downloadable content. It also natively integrates MPEG-H 3D Audio for high-quality compression.
The standard models a wide range of real-world acoustic effects to enhance realism. It captures detailed sound source properties (e.g., level, point sources, extended sources, directivity characteristics, and Doppler effects) as well as complex environmental interactions (e.g., reflections, reverberation, diffraction, and both total and partial occlusion). Additionally, it supports diverse acoustic environments, including outdoor spaces, multiroom scenes with connecting portals, and areas with dynamic openings such as doors and windows. Its rendering engine balances computational efficiency with high-quality output, making it suitable for a variety of applications.
Further reinforcing its impact, the upcoming ISO/IEC 23090-34 Immersive audio reference software will fully implement MPEG-I immersive audio in a real-time framework. This interactive 6DoF experience will facilitate industry adoption and accelerate innovation in immersive audio. The reference software is expected to reach FDIS status by April 2025.
With MPEG-I immersive audio, MPEG continues to set the standard for the future of interactive and spatial audio, paving the way for more immersive digital experiences.
MPEG ratifies Second Edition of MPEG Immersive Video
At the 149th MPEG meeting, MPEG Video Coding (WG 4) advanced the second edition of ISO/IEC 23090-12 MPEG immersive video (MIV) to Final Draft International Standard (FDIS), marking a significant step forward in immersive video technology.
MIV enables the efficient compression, storage, and distribution of immersive video content, where multiple real or virtual cameras capture a 3D scene. Designed for next-generation applications, the standard supports playback with six degrees of freedom (6DoF), allowing users to not only change their viewing orientation (pitch/yaw/roll) but also move freely within the scene (x/y/z). By leveraging strong hardware support for widely used video formats, MPEG immersive video provides a highly flexible framework for multi-view video plus depth (MVD) and multi-plane image (MPI) video coding, making volumetric video more accessible and efficient.
With the second edition, MPEG continues to expand the capabilities of MPEG immersive video, introducing a range of new technologies to enhance coding efficiency and support more advanced immersive experiences. Key additions include:
- Geometry coding using luma and chroma planes, improving depth representation
- Capture device information, enabling better reconstruction of the original scene
- Patch margins and background views, optimizing scene composition
- Static background atlases, reducing redundant data for stationary elements
- Support for decoder-side depth estimation, enhancing depth accuracy
- Chroma dynamic range modification, improving color fidelity
- Piecewise linear normalized disparity quantization and linear depth quantization, refining depth precision
The second edition also introduces two new profiles: (1) MIV Simple MPI profile, allowing MPI content playback with a single 2D video decoder, and (2) MIV 2 profile, a superset of existing profiles that incorporates all newly added tools.
With these advancements, MPEG immersive video continues to push the boundaries of immersive media, providing a robust and efficient solution for next-generation video applications.
MPEG ratifies Sixth Edition of MPEG-DASH
At the 149th MPEG meeting, MPEG Systems (WG 3) advanced the sixth edition of MPEG-DASH (ISO/IEC 23009-1 Media presentation description and segment formats) by promoting it to the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS), the final stage of standards development. This milestone underscores MPEG’s ongoing commitment to innovation and responsiveness to evolving market needs.
The sixth edition introduces several key enhancements to improve the flexibility and efficiency of MPEG-DASH:
- Alternative media presentation support, enabling seamless switching between main and alternative streams
- Content steering signaling across multiple CDNs, optimizing content delivery
- Enhanced segment sequence addressing, improving low-latency streaming and faster tune-in
- Compact duration signaling using patterns, reducing MPD overhead
- Support for Common Media Client Data (CMCD), enabling better client-side analytics
- Nonlinear playback for interactive storylines, expanding support for next-generation media experiences
With these advancements, MPEG-DASH continues to evolve as a robust and scalable solution for adaptive streaming, ensuring greater efficiency, flexibility, and enhanced user experiences across a wide range of applications.
MPEG Issues Call for Proposals for Lenslet Video Coding
At the 149th MPEG meeting, MPEG Technical Requirements (WG 2) issued a Call for Proposals (CfP) on Lenslet Video Coding (LVC) technologies for light field video content. This initiative represents MPEG’s ongoing effort to explore and standardize innovative video technologies for immersive media applications.
The Lenslet Video Coding CfP builds upon MPEG’s prior work in immersive video, aiming to address challenges associated with capturing, encoding, and rendering 3D video content. Lenslet video technology enables efficient representation and compression of light field data, facilitating a seamless and realistic viewing experience across a variety of devices, including head-mounted displays (HMDs), multi-view displays, and augmented reality systems.
Given the growing demand for immersive applications in entertainment, medical imaging, and industrial design, MPEG is keen to evaluate and adopt innovative approaches for lenslet video compression. MPEG seeks proposals that demonstrate high efficiency in compression while maintaining the decodability of the existing standard for a sub-bitstream and the quality of the 3D visual output. Submissions are encouraged to propose solutions addressing scalability, interoperability, and real-time processing, which are critical for practical deployment across diverse use cases.
MPEG expects to receive a variety of cutting-edge proposals, which may include novel coding algorithms or adaptations of existing technologies tailored for lenslet data. By responding to the CfP, the proponent affirms their willingness to make source code available for use as the starting point for collaborative standardization. It is the proponent’s responsibility to obtain any necessary internal approvals in a timely manner, otherwise more readily available source code may be selected.
Interested parties are requested to contact the MPEG WG 2 Convenor Igor Curcio (igor.curcio@nokia.com) and MPEG WG 4 Convenor Yu Lu (yul@zju.edu.cn to register their participation and submit responses for review at the 151st MPEG meeting in July 2025. Further details are available in the CfP, issued as WG 2 document N 432 and accessible via MPEG’s official website.
MPEG reaches First Milestone Avatar Representation Format
At the 149th MPEG meeting, MPEG Systems (WG 3) promoted ISO/IEC 23090-39 Avatar representation format to Committee Draft (CD), the initial stage of standard development.
This emerging standard defines a comprehensive data model for avatars, specifying the structure of avatar representation format documents using JSON. It supports efficient storage by enabling integration with the ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF) or simple compression via ZIP. Additionally, the standard includes support for facial animation using weighted blend shapes and body and hand animation through linear blend skinning, ensuring realistic motion and expression.
The standard is planned to be completed, i.e., to reach the status of Final Draft International Standard (FDIS), by the beginning of 2026.
MPEG adds Support for new SEI Messages in HEVC
At its 149th MPEG meeting, MPEG Joint Video Coding Team(s) with ITU-T SG 16 (WG 5) issued a Committee Draft Amendment (CDAM) for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) (ISO/IEC 23008-2 | ITU-T Rec. H.265), introducing support for new Supplemental Enhancement Information (SEI) messages.
These enhancements align HEVC with ongoing developments in the upcoming version of the Versatile Supplemental Enhancement Information (VSEI) standard (ISO/IEC 23002-7 | ITU-T Rec. H.274). The update will enable:
- Extensions of neural network-based post-filtering, improving video quality through AI-driven processing
- Source picture timing signaling, ensuring precise synchronization
- Support for infrared and X-ray video modalities, expanding HEVC’s applicability to specialized imaging domains
- Digital signature messages, enhancing security and authenticity of video streams
Finalization of this amendment is targeted for October 2025, further strengthening HEVC’s role as a future-ready video coding standard.