Abstract of Marco Mattavelli
Reconfigurable Video Coding (RVC) A New Specification and Implementation Paradigm for
MPEG Codecs
Multimedia coding technology, after about 20 years of active research, has delivered a rich
variety of di erent and complex coding algorithms. Selecting an appropriate subset of these
algorithms would, in principle, enable a codec designer to produce any desired trade-o between
compression performance and implementation complexity. Currently, interoperability demands
that this selection process be \hard-wired" into the normative description of the codec, or at
best, a number of choices codi ed within the media syntax (i.e MPEG pro les). This talk
presents an alternative paradigm for codec deployment that is currently under development by
MPEG, known as Recon gurable Video Coding (RVC). Using RVC, the nal objective is to
enable arbitrary combinations of fundamental algorithms to be assembled, without additional
standardization steps, because everything necessary for decoding is delivered alongside the
content itself. The side-information consists of a description of the content syntax, as well
as a description of the decoder con guration. Decoder con guration information is provided
as a description of the interconnections between algorithmic blocks. The approach is based on
describing all \algorithms" under the form of \library" of coding algorithms using CAL formalism
and an XML dialect for the description of the con guration. The talk will brie
y summarize the
status of the RVC standardisation process, the di erent objectives from the point of view of a
standard body, the technical problems solved so far, the open issues, and the interest and tools
needed to support RVC speci cation on recon gurable platforms.
Short Biography of Marco Mattavelli
Marco MATTAVELLI is currently the director of the LSM-GRAM (Multimedia Architecture Research Group) of EPFL. He has gained a wide experience in multimedia, signal and image processing, and telecommunication technologies starting with his first activities when he joined the "Philips Research Laboratories" of Eindhoven in the framework of EUREKA-95 (HDMAC) project since January 88. Main research activities regarded channel and source coding for optical recording and electronic photography. Since October 1991 he joined the "Signal Processing Laboratory" (LTS) of the "Swiss Federal Institute of Technology" (EPFL) where he got his PhD in 1996 with the thesis: "Motion analysis and estimation: from ill-posed discrete inverse linear problems to MPEG-2 coding". There, he has been involved in various projects, research and didactic activities. Since July 96 he joined the Signal processing Laboratory 3 of EPFL formerly "Integrated System Laboratory" (LSI) where he has been leading the work in ATLANTIC, EMPHASIS, OCCAMM, MOSES ACTS projects and in the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 standardization activities (better known as MPEG), for which he is currently Chairman of the Implementation Study Group (ISG). For his work and contributions on MPEG-4 implementation issues, in 1998 and 2003, he has received the ISO/IEC Award.
His major research activities and interest include: architectures and systems for video coding, real-time multimedia systems, video processing, motion analysis and estimation, neural networks for image and signal processing, applications of combinatorial optimization to signal processing. He holds patents in the multimedia and video processing fields. He is the author or co-author of more than 80 research papers and two books. He has been guest editor for the IEEE Trans. On Circuits and Systems for Video Technology and the Eurasip Journal of Embedded Systems. He has been vising scientist at Xilinx Research Lab. In the summer of 2005.
