MPEG envisages royalty-free MPEG video coding standard

MPEG has issued a press release describing its intent to move forward on developing a royalty-free MPEG standard.

The press release is here, relevant part is below.  The meeting resolution approving the press release is here.

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UPDATE:  This press release was picked up in multiple articles, and most interestingly discussed in the Guardian blog by Florian Mueller.

Guardian: Royalty-free MPEG video codec ups the ante for Google’s WebM/VP8
Slashdot: MPEG Continues With Royalty-free MPEG Video Codec Plans
The Register: Google open video codec faces second challenger: VP8 v MPEG v MPEG LA v acronym chaos
The H: MPEG calling for royalty-free web video codec
LWN:  In other news – “MPEG envisages royalty-free MPEG video coding standard”

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INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION FOR STANDARDISATION
ORGANISATION INTERNATIONALE DE NORMALISATION
ISO/IEC/JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11
CODING OF MOVING PICTURES AND AUDIO

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 N11703
January 2011 – Daegu, KR

Source:	Convenor of MPEG
Status:	Approved by WG11
Subject:	MPEG Press Release
Date:	28 January, 2011

MPEG envisages royalty-free MPEG video coding standard

Daegu, KR – The 95^th MPEG meeting was held in Daegu, Korea from the 24^th to the 28^th of January 2011.

Highlights of the 95^th Meeting

MPEG anticipates March 2011 CfP for Type-1 Video Coding Standard

MPEG has been producing standards that provide industry with the best video compression technologies. In recognition of the growing importance that the Internet plays in the generation and consumption of video content, MPEG intends to develop a new video compression standard in line with the expected usage models of the Internet. The new standard is intended to achieve substantially better compression performance than that offered by MPEG-2 and possibly comparable to that offered by the AVC Baseline Profile. MPEG will issue a call for proposals on video compression technology at the end of its upcoming meeting in March 2011 that is expected to lead to a standard falling under ISO/IEC “Type-1 licensing”, i.e. intended to be “royalty free”.