FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 1996-10-31

Audio and video standards earn an Emmy award

Computer experts from around the world, including Canada, have joined the ranks of Frasier, NYPD Blue, Cheers, Murphy Brown and Hill Street Blues.

The volunteers who develop standards for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) don't have their own prime-time TV series - at least not yet. But, like the shows mentioned above, they have earned the television industry's highest honor: an Emmy Award.

The award was given to ISO and IEC in recognition of their work on MPEG and JPEG, two influential standards that allow still and moving video pictures to be stored, manipulated and played back using computers.

MPEG (short for Moving Picture Experts Group) provides a means of compressing high-quality audio and video signals to speed up transmission through digital networks, satellite links or telephone lines and to allow storage on CD-ROMs, digital tapes or disks. JPEG (for Joint Photographic Experts Group) does the same for still images. Both formats are commonly used on the Internet because they provide good image quality at small file sizes.

"Hundreds of dedicated individuals from 26 countries worked to develop each of these standards, and this award represents an excellent achievement by the international community," said Dr. Daniel T. Lee of the Hewlett-Packard Company and leader of the working group responsible for developing the JPEG standard.

Canada was one of those countries. Through the Standards Council of Canada, the Canadian member body of both ISO and IEC, 31 Canadians take part in the committee that developed the standards.

The award shows the benefits of open, international standards over proprietary ones controlled by a single company, according to André Vincent, a manager with the Communications Research Centre in Ottawa and a Canadian participant. "The worldwide consensus on MPEG has helped to give a boost to the digital-video industry," he said. "Most emerging video applications are aligning themselves to the standard."

ISO and IEC bring together volunteers from about 120 countries to develop international standards for products, services and systems ranging from fuses to medical devices. The Standards Council of Canada, a federal Crown corporation whose mandate is to foster and promote voluntary standardization, coordinates Canada's participation in ISO and IEC.

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