Tuesday, September 30 Session Sponsored by MPEG-4 Industry Forum 3:45 PM - 5:00 PM Session D: MPEG-4 and AVC Applications MPEG-4 is the interactive coding standard for all digital multimedia platforms, developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) -- the same group that designed MPEG-1 (including MP3 digital audio) and MPEG-2 (the digital television and DVD standard). Being object-based and extending beyond video and audio, MPEG-4 supports rich, interactive, standards-based multimedia from low bandwidths to transparent quality. MPEG-4 is an open standard, representing thousands of man-years of work shared by more than a hundred companies. It is the only open standard that can address the opportunities enabled by the digital revolution: easily deploy multimedia content for any and all platforms. If you want to use a standard for your digital multimedia, personal media, interactive media and mobile media interests, MPEG-4 is your only choice. This session will bring you updates and insight into MPEG-4 on Mobile Devices, the latest MPEG-4 AVC / H.264 video compression, and Object Oriented Interactivity from several industry leaders - members of the MPEG-4 Industry Forum. M4IF represents more than 100 companies from diverse industries evenly distributed across North America, Europe and Asia, addressing MPEG-4 adoption issues that go beyond the charter of ISO/IEC MPEG. Activities of the forum include a long running and established interoperability program, certification, several working groups, access to ISO/MPEG committee members, and an annual conference (WEMP-4). For more information visit: http://www.m4if.org. William (Bill) Mengel, Vice President, Research and Development, Thomson Consumer Products David Price, Vice President, Business Development, Harmonic Data Systems Shawn Ambawni, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, Nextreaming Thierry Fautier, Vice President, Marketing, Vsofts William (Bill) Mengel, Vice President, Research and Development, Thomson Consumer Products: Bill Mengel, with over 38 years in the electronics industry with RCA and Thomson, has held a number of managerial positions in operations, marketing and engineering and is the recipient of several U.S. patents. Throughout his career, he has managed a number of significant and high profile projects. The impact of some of the projects and the products Bill was responsible for in the 1990’s was significant to both Thomson and the industry in general. As one of the patriarchs of the subscriber terminal system used with North America's first high powered Digital Satellite System, he was one of the architects in what was the world's first major deployment of a mass produced consumer product to utilize MPEG digital compression as a platform. In October of 2002, Bill accepted a technical Emmy award on behalf of Thomson from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS). The Emmy was awarded to Thomson in recognition for its pioneering efforts in the development of the consumer digital set-top boxes for satellite and cable of which Bill was intimately involved in. In his current position, Bill is a member of Thomson’s Research and Innovation organization whose charter is to identify, manage and promote the most promising innovative projects and to bring them to a business and technical maturity level. Bill’s specific responsibilities include managing projects related to the technology blocks that are to be incorporated into future systems and to act as an interface between Thomson’s Research organizations and the various Thomson business units. David Price is Vice President, Business Development at Harmonic Inc., based in Sunnyvale, California where he has been instrumental in pioneering Harmonic's leading position in digital video broadcast, distribution and IP based delivery technologies. David was previously Vice-President with TV/COM International (formerly Oak Communications), where he was responsible for Sales and Sales Operations. Originally from the UK, David came to the US as Vice President of M/A-COM Linkabit, now Hughes Network Systems. David has over 19 years experience in the telecommunications industry during which he has successfully carried out executive management responsibilities in sales, engineering and operations and general management functions for satellite and terrestrial based communications technology providers. David has written many articles for trade publications and journals around the world and has also appeared on a number of business television and radio programs in the US, Europe and the Middle East. David has lectured at UCSD and is a frequent guest speaker at many of the world's leading symposiums on advanced communications technology. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the MPEG Industry Forum and was selected this year as one of the "Euro 50" by Cable & Satellite Europe. Originally, an electronics engineer on the design team of the worlds first CAT scan system, he graduated from CIT with a Fellowship MBA and has an Honors Bachelor's degree in Cybernetics, Instrument Physics and Mathematics. Thierry Fautier, Vice President, Marketing, Vsofts: Thierry Fautier has been one of the primary drivers at Philips in the creation of MPEG technology and has been key contributing member in ISO/MPEG standard from 1990 (MPEG1) until 1995 (MPEG2). This effort has led to successful applications such as Digital TV and DVD where for the first time in the entertainment industry, one single standard (MPEG2) is used all over the world. He has occupied in Philips different positions starting as a Research engineer, then moving into the semiconductor division of Philips where he has transitioned towards marketing in technical, product and strategy positions. Thierry last position was director of product marketing in TriMedia technology, spin off of Philips, jointly backed by Sony, Sanyo and National Semiconductors. Thierry joined VSOFTS as he is convinced that the future of video encoding lies into programmability and therefore requires a powerful encoding technology, that VSOFTS is uniquely positioned to deliver.