SEA aims to follow a rather aggressive and proactive plan for contributions to a number of very important standardization bodies and comities:

Video Encoding and Transmission: The MVC extension of H.264/AVC (MPEG-4 Part 10, Amendment 4) addressing 3D video applications is scheduled for early 2008. The MVC proposal of Fraunhofer HHI has been selected as the solution for MVC and their software became the Joint Video Multi-View Model (JMVM) reference software. SEA members participate in the coding standardization, while SEA concentrates on H.264 MVC storage standardization at the MPEG committee and the DVB, and contribute on RTP payload and SDP signalling standardization at the IETF committee. As well as emerging standard activities like adding depth information (as provided by MPEG C Part 3) to MVC coded media for truly free viewpoint coding will be monitored and standardization activities for transport and storage will be conducted within SEA.

Mobile Service Architecture: SEA will be active at 3GPP for standardization of SAE (Service Architecture Evolution) for an evolution or migration of the 3GPP system to a higher-data-rate, lower-latency, and a packet-optimized system that supports multiple Radio Access Technologies (RATs). Vodafone, Nomor and Philips are 3GPP members and via SAE, they will try to push standardization of seamless mobility (especially service continuity) between heterogeneous networks. As the SEA project will investigate the requirements of the SGi interface to connect a seamless Media Gateway (sMGW) and the necessary functionality and methods to control service adaptation to achieve best E2E QoS also with the home network, the SEA project will push their results in the SA2 and appropriate RAN WGs (mainly RAN2).

Rich-media technology Standards: Key challenges in today’s rich media technology standards include the specification of numerous technical requirements defined in terms of ergonomic usage (user interface) as well as service-enabling features such as adaptation to mobile network and devices, real-time interactivity within connected services, interface with DRM solutions and multi-network access. SEA will study the areas of video encoding/distribution within LaSeR and via UPM will contribute accordingly in these areas.

sHMG/RG Standardisation. SEA standardisation towards sHMG and RG will concentrate on the Open Service gateway Initiative (OSGi) and Home Gateway Initiative (HGI). The Home Gateway Initiative is an open forum launched by Telcos in December 2004 with the aim to release specifications of the home gateway. In addition to Telcos, manufacturers have expressed their interest to join the alliance. Philips, Thomson and Vodafone are already members of the OSGi and the HGI.

SEA Contributions....(so far)