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Video Encoding

Relevant standards and de-facto standards are:

• H.261 (CCITT Standard)
• H.120 (largely superseded by H.261)
• MPEG (ISO Standard)
• Cell-B (Sun Microsystems)
• nv (Xerox PARC)

In the traditional tele-conferencing world, H.261 has by far the largest installed base. There are also a number of software implementations in the packet video domain which have been shown to interwork with the hardware solutions from the serial line domain. H.120 has been superseded by H.261. MPEG has yet to establish itself, but as chipsets for VCRs become cheaply available, it sure to become important in the next year or so. Cell-B and nv only exist in the packet video domain. nv has the widest use in the packet video domain, but new hardware just released by Sun may impact that.

The MICE partners are currently concentrating on H.261 based solutions, as they have the largest installed base, and allow interworking between the two domains. However, most partners also use nv for conferences involving the US that are purely multicast based. The situation is sure to change during 1994, and when it becomes clear which solutions will prevail, we will support interworking (through the CMMC) between different compression schemes.