Adaptive streaming over HTTP has become the default dominant approach for video distribution.
At the moment, proprietary technologies have been deployed such as as Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Microsoft Smooth Streaming and Adobe Dynamic Streaming, and the industry has been eager to have a unified standard solution.

MPEG-DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP), now known as ISO/IEC 23009-1, has been ratified prior to the MPEG session held in Geneva last December. The standard enters now its maturation phase and naturally triggers IMTC attention as interoperability tests will be a key factor in this phase.

IMTC proposes a Webinar session in order to first introduce this new technology and how it will impact the video streaming area. And then present the PSS Activity Group and its plan for DASH tests in the coming months.

Participants

• Andrea Basso, Chair of IMTC Carrier Technology WG, Technologist at AT&T Labs (moderator)
• Thomas Stockhammer, Consultant technical standards at Qualcomm
• Paola Sunna, Senior Research Engineer at RAI
• Emanuele Quacchio, R&D Project Leader at STMicroelectronics
• David Price, Head of Business Development Compression at Ericsson TV
• Yves Ramanzin, Co-chair of IMTC PSS AG, Program Manager at PacketVideo

Register Here

In March 2011, IMTC has conducted the first CTO roundtable – a first of it’s kind event with participants from both the vendor, the service provider and the clients end. Mirril McMullen, the director of connectivity solutions architecture at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals has joined the event to talk about video-conferencing in Pfizer. For the first time we bring you the full transcribe of his talk, alongside video – this is a must see for anyone looking to understand the customer perceptive of companies with multi-vendor equipment:

• The problem with combining legacy SD endpoints with newer HD ones.
• Unused conferencing rooms and scheduling.
• The importance of desktop video-conferencing and SAAS.
• Interoperability problems.
• The importance of Outlook to scheduling calls.
• Why Skype is the future of corporate video-conferencing.

To download the presentation, video and full-transcribe please leave your details below and an email will be sent with all the download links:

IMTC Newest Member – Intel Corporation
IMTC Welcomes Intel as it’s newest member! Among recently added members are also Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co. KG. and LG.

HSPA & HSPA Evolution Info
Can be found on the 3g4g UK site – the website contains whitepapers and presentations about HSPA – showing the standard advancements in each release.
Link originally found in 3G4G Blog.

Vidyo for Telemedicine
Language barriers can often be problematic for health-care services and handicapped deaf patients are even a bigger problem. The following video by Vidyo shows a simple and practical use of telemedicine:

DVE Huddle Rooms
DVE announced the availability of demonstration Telepresence rooms in their new offices (3112 West Alpine Street, Santa Ana, CA. 92704). The new Huddle systems use Vidyo codecs and iPad based control pads.
For more info see http://www.dvetelepresence.com/news

One of the main attractions of the SuperOP! 2011 was the first ever multi-device VoLTE call over live LTE equipment supplied by Huawei – LTE enchanced radio access (eNB), Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and IMS core.

Rouzbeh Farhoumand, Sr. Director for Huawei and IMTC Director, next to Huawei LTE Core setup

During SuperOp! 2011, for the first time ever, Voice over LTE testing was conducted by Ericsson AB, Huawei, Intel Mobile, RADVISION, Samsung and ST Ericsson over a live LTE. Complete infrastructure to include LTE enhanced radio access (eNB), Evolved Packet Core (EPC), and IMS were provided by Huawei. “This year’s event was a significant milestone in demonstrating for the first time ever, a successful VoLTE interoperability on a common User Network Interface (UNI) in a live LTE infrastructure. A fully interoperable and high quality voice service is fundamental to operators globally, and Huawei is honored to be a part of the effort in realization of that goal by providing our end-to-end VoLTE solution,” said Rouzbeh Farhoumand, Senior Director of Huawei and an IMTC Board of Directors Member.

Voice over LTE testing plans had being developed by the IMTC IMS Activity Group, which was designated by GSMA, the owner of the GSMA PRD IR.92 VoLTE specification, as leading testing group.
Testing during SuperOp! 2011 covered areas such as LTE voice call establishment, supplementary services ( OIP, OIR, TIP ,TIR, HOLD and 3-way conferencing) and connectivity to legacy services. “Voice over LTE is gaining momentum, and there is a clear need for interoperability before commercial services can be deployed” said Tsahi Levent-Levi, IMS Activity Group Co-Chairman and CTO of Technology Business Unit for RADVISION, ”Testing over a live LTE network at the SuperOp! 2011 is an important milestone that we have successfully achieved.”

The IMTC IMS Activity Group continues to develop testing plans for VoLTE IR.92 and plans to conduct additional VoLTE interoperability testing events this year, both independently and in cooperation with other industry consortia such as MSF and ETSI. Current members of the IMS Activity Group include AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson AB, Huawei, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Orange-FT, Qualcomm, RADVISION, Samsung, Sasken Communication, Sony Ericsson and ST Ericsson. The IMTC IMS Activity Group likes to reiterate its open call for participation for all operators and equipment manufacturers to facilitate VoLTE service delivery world-wide.

IMTC’s SuperOp! 2011 was hosted by IMTC with event management from Global Inventures. Sponsors included Cisco, Polycom, Huawei, UCIF and Vidyo. Next SuperOp! interoperability testing event is expected to take place during April/May 2012 timeframe, location will be announced at a later date.

The International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) announces successful completion of SuperOp! 2011, the premier testing event of the telecommunications industry for multimedia communication standards and products.

More than 70 engineers from 22 leading multimedia communication companies got together in Waikoloa, Hawaii to participate in week-long interoperability testing exercise.
SuperOp! 2011 testing covered equipment and service interoperability on combinations of IP, 3G and LTE networks, and covered a broad range of technologies such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and IMS, HD Videoconferencing, TIP, Telepresence, HTTP Live Streaming (both Microsoft and Apple varieties) and traditional RTSP Streaming, as well as full spectrum of SIP-based and H.323-based videoconferencing systems.

Highlights of the SuperOp! 2011 include the following:

Activity Group Testing

IMS Activity Group conducted first ever multi-device Voice over LTE (VoLTE) interoperability testing over a live LTE infrastructure. Ericsson, Huawei, Intel Mobile, RADVISION, Samsung and ST Ericsson participated in the testing. Network elements to include LTE enhanced radio access (eNB), Evolved Packet Core (EPC), and IMS were provided by Huawei:

Rouzbeh Farhoumand, Sr. Director for Huawei and IMTC Director, next to Huawei LTE Core setup

VoLTE testing at SuperOp! 2011 included LTE voice call establishment, supplementary services (such as OIP, OIR, TIP ,TIR, HOLD and 3-way conferencing) and connectivity to legacy services.

VoLTE testing plan had being developed by the IMS AG which includes AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson AB, Huawei, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Orange-FT, Qualcomm, RADVISION, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and ST Ericsson.

TIP Activity Group conducted its first ever Interoperability testing event during SuperOp! 2011. Collectively among all participants, about 200 calls had being performed during testing, which was conducted according to the testing plan consisting of more than 100 test cases. Seven companies participated in testing: Acme Packet, AT&T, Cisco, Huawei, Polycom, RADVISION and Teliris. TIP AG Co-Chairs also conducted education workshop on TIP (recording will be available at a later time, please send requests to help@imtc.org). TIP AG participated in SuperConnect (more details below).

SIP Parity Activity Group SuperOp! testing included 22 participating teams from 9 companies (Acme Packet, Bluejeans, Cisco, Huawei, Lifesize, Magor Corporation, Polycom, Radvision, and Vidyo). Interworking among teams was very broad, extending above and beyond that described within the best practice documents. Hundreds of test cases involving thousands of calls were made.

Tested functionality included H.264 HD video (both AVC and SVC), BFCP (using both UDP and TCP) for content sharing, BFCP/H.239 interworking, supplementary services, multipoint calls, security and encryption and more. All companies also participated in the SuperConnect (more details below).

Based on success of SuperOp! testing, SIP Parity Activity Group will present all Best Practices Documents to IMTC Member’s vote to make them official IMTC documents. Following that, Best Practices documents will be made available to all industry participants without IMTC membership requirements. Additional announcements will be made at a later time.

Conferencing over IP Activity Group testing included all the same companies as SIP Parity AG above. Testing had being performed in Ad Hoc mode and included all basic and advanced scenarios for H.323-based videoconferencing.

Packet Switch Streaming Activity Group SuperOp! testing was focused on RTSP basic and advanced functionalities, Apple Live Streaming and MS Smooth streaming. Total number of test cases performed during the week exceeded 1500. Eight companies participated in PSS testing: Alcatel-Lucent, Nexstreaming, NXT, Orange-FT, Packet Video, Qualcomm, Real Networks and Samsung. PSS companies also participated in SuperConnect event.

SVC Activity Group (in process of formation): An information meeting was held during SuperOp! 2011 to consider the formation of an SVC Activity Group. The meeting was well attended, and featured a presentation of a proposed charter by Dr. Alex Eleftheriadis (Vidyo) followed by discussion among the participants. The group intends to harmonize its work with a related activity in UCIF, and focus on H.323 as well as mobile systems. Support for the creation of the group was expressed by Lifesize, Magor, Polycom, RADVISION, Teliris, and Vidyo.

Metadata Activity Group: Metadata AG plans to resume its activities going forward. Dr. Andrea Basso from AT&T presented an update and outlined plans for the group focusing on Video Conferencing and Telepresence Requirements. Informational webinar will be held during month of June/July. Participating member companies: AT&T and Cisco.

Conferencing and Telepresence Interoperability Activity Group also presented an update to the members and plans to conduct information webinar during June/July timeframe. Participating member companies: AT&T and Lifesize.

IMTC SuperConnect 2011

SuperConnect is culmination event of a week-long testing exercise at SuperOp where all available communication equipment is connected together in one big conference call.

More than 50 endpoints participated in SuperConnect 2011. SuperConnect establishment was accomplished inrecord time of less than 20 minutes. For the first time ever, number of SIP connections was equal or exceeding number of H.323 connections. For the first time ever, Telepresence Systems were included into SuperConnect via TIP.

SuperConnect 2011 Network Diagram looked as following (approximated view):

SuperConnect 2011 Conference Call

Here is an output of SuperConnect conference call in various views, including live streaming on mobile device:

Thank You to our Participants and Sponsors

In conclusion, IMTC would like to thank all participants for making the SuperOp! 2011 very successful event and everyone’s contribution into moving the industry forward.

IMTC expresses special gratitude to its SuperOp! 2011 Sponsors: Cisco, Huawei, Polycom, UCIF and Vidyo.

Step by step guide – sounds promising, right? We like step by step guides, they make our lives simpler. So in the spirit of simple and beautiful world, let me present you with the step by step guide to achieving real life interoperability.

Step one – you organize SuperOp!.

Step two – you get all the engineers together to test interoperability.

Step three – testing takes place, mixed with some fun (makes people happier, so they tend to do better work). Step four – you step aside and admire the results. While on the step four, you realize that the world became a little bit more interoperable. Once you done with admiration, you start from the step one.

This is precisely what IMTC had being doing for the past 15 years, and plans to continue doing for the foreseeable future. Every year interoperability becomes a little bit better, calls are established faster and video quality is become closer and closer to the real life. You also understand that the is more and more work to do – new vendors coming in, new technologies come out of the crib and start craving for attention – therefore they should be included in the next circle.

If you just take a look at the SuperOp floor, all you see is a lot of busy people. Just by taking the look from outside, it is hard to comprehend what is going on, and why all this people (yes, engineers) are staring so intently into the myriad of computer screens and monitors. The tests are performed and results are stored in the form of the logs and notes.|
All the test result, success, failure or else strictly belong to the participants (lyrical, err – legal interlude: all the companies sign rules of engagement which strictly prohibits any public disclosure of particular test results).
So, how one can assess the level of successful interoperability if all results are kept private? Easy – this is why each SuperOp! ends with Super Connect.
What is SuperConnect? It is something which makes engineers proud. During the week, the tasting takes place, and interoperability is established for all the different systems brought to the testing room. Goal of the SuperConnect is to bring all the interoperable devices (by all means, as many as possible) into one big conference – and of course, admire the result on the big screen.
It is very easy to see if world is becoming more interoperable year after year by looking at some of the SuperConnect stats.
Here are some numbers for the SuperConnect 2011. Despite rough preparation cycle, it took less than 20 minutes from start until the finish (all devices connected) – I believe it was the fastest ever. Just so you understand the significance of this number – in the SuperOp! schedule we still allocate 3 hours to complete SuperConnect.
10 years ago, we us to start it in the morning, as 3 hours were not enough. In the SuperConnect 2011, 50 endpoints were connected, including Telepresence Systems. For the first time ever, the number of endpoints connecting over SIP was equal if not greater to the number of endpoints connected using H.323. For the first time ever, TIP was used in the SuperConnect network. For the first time ever, SuperConnect network included SBCs. Full SuperConnect video-conference was successfully streamed to the mobile device using packet switch streaming technologies. In parallel to all the video testing work, for the first time ever, VoLTE (Voice over LTE) testing was performed over live LTE network.

Did I manage to convince you that the world is a little bit more interoperable place now? I truly believe that it is, and I believe that all the companies and engineers who attended the event have every reason to be proud. Video is finally becoming just a routine (this is good!) and IMTC played and will continue to play the major role in empowering people to communicate any time, any place and on any device.
Are we done? Is it the time to rest on laurels? We are still very far from it.

There is a lot of work to be done, and this work will only be as successful as the companies’ participation in it. If your company is not a member, you should really ask yourself why. You have have to join in, as making the world more interoperable (and, therefore, better?) is a collective (and fun!) effort. The interoperable world awaits … You.

Tables are set (we call them booth, but they are simply two tables put together in L-shape), the network and power cables being laid down. Equipment on the racks is humming away:

IMTC’s annual flagship interoperability testing event, called SuperOp!, is starting on Monday, May 16^th.

It will be 15^th SuperOp! – as IMTC had being working since 1993 on ensuring interoperability of standards-based  communication technologies and devices. There had being numerous interoperability testing events done by individual activity groups – I would roughly estimate that total number of events might be closer to 150 – engineers, competitors, getting together to ensure that competition and marketing aside, our technology is cohesive and working together – in real life.

Everything runs in circles in this life. Okay, it is actually a spiral, but when you are in it, it looks like circle. We became a full circle with the location of the event – Three out of four biggest and most successful IMTC SuperOp! events took place in Hawaii – 1998, 1999, 2001 ( 2000 event was in Nice). All the way until 2006, IMTC SuperOp! events were conducted in September ( then shifted into April/May time frame). The event in year 2001 was taking place September 10-14… I still remember being awaken at 3:30 AM on Tuesday, September 11, with an unfathomable news of World Trade Center bombing. So when we decided that we are going to Hawaii for 2011 event, whole planning cycle had being a bit surreal, in anticipation of waking up and finding out that it was just a dream. But – we are here. It is a different island (we are on Big Island now), but still a Hilton hotel is hosting the event – Hilton Waikoloa Village. Things do run in circles.

Our view here at Kona

Until 2001, H.323 protocol was the main focus of IMTC. At the beginning 2001, a small group of companies approached IMTC and said “streaming video is important, and it will be big, and it should be interoperable”. SuperOp! 2001 was first ever event to test Packet Switch Streaming technologies – and yes, it became big and continues to be one of the main activities of IMTC.

Everything runs in circles. SuperOp! 2011 will be first ever event for Voice over LTE testing over live LTE network (courtesy of our sponsor, Huawei). SuperOp! 2011 will be first ever event for testing TIP – Telepresence Interoperability Protocol. SuperOp! 2011 will be first ever IMTC event for Huawei, Acme Packet, Teliris, Magor, BlueJeans. Overall, there will be more engineers attending this SuperOp! 2011 than SuperOp! 2010.

Video communications and all –IP communications are marching forward with ever-increasing speed. Video communication became regular part of our daily lives. IP pipe, ubiquitously available in 4G mobile networks, promises to further simplify our daily communication and allow delivering of the new services. For more than 15 years, IMTC had being pushing both Video and ubiquitous all-IP communication to become a simple reality, based on proven interoperability – and the work is going to continue. And if you are not participating yet, it is time to be the part of the circle of Interoperability – the first ever.

International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) is pleased to announce that interoperability testing of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) will be one of the key focus areas during their flagship SuperOp! 2011 interoperability testing event in Kona, HI, May 15-20.  IMTC’s VoLTE testing will focus on terminals and core network interoperability.  IMTC invites all interested parties to participate in this engineering test event.

IMTC has a special area of interest with VoLTE testing. While other organizations may test VoLTE on network interfaces, IMTC has a keen focus for VoLTE testing on terminals and with the core network. This makes the IMTC SuperOp! 2011 testing event unique, and one of the few places to actually accomplish this level of engineer to engineer interoperability testing. A complete network inclusive of LTE access is being hosted by Huawei at the May 2011 SuperOp!, and IMTC is inviting all terminal companies to participate including ST-Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, LG, RIM and others, as well as Operators with interest in VoLTE.

At the June 2010 SuperOp!, participating companies included Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, LifeSize Communications, Nextreaming Corp., Nokia, NXP, Orange France Telecom, PacketVideo, Polycom, RADVISION, RealNetworks, TANDBERG Telecom, Vidiator Technology and Vidyo.

Full details including the ‘rules of engagement’ for this engineering only testing event can be found at the link above. This is a closed and confidential interoperability testing event, it is not a public event. Access to IMTC interoperability testing events is available to all IMTC member companies, and invited non-member companies who can contribute to the interop testing activities. IMTC member companies participate in ongoing development of the interoperability testing plans and specifications, organize and conduct face-to-face and virtual interoperability testing events on the regular basis, and provide feedback for improvements to national and international standardization bodies like ITU-T, 3GPP, IETF, GSMA and others.

SuperOp!, organized and conducted by the IMTC annually, is a significant event for the telecommunications, video conferencing and Telepresence sector. It brings together engineers from the leading companies developing unified communications, video communications products and services worldwide. The event includes equipment and service interoperability on combinations of IP networks, and covered a broad range of technologies such as HD Videoconferencing, Telepresence, mobile 3G-324M video, new 3G rate adaptation mechanisms in Packet Switch Streaming, SIP with BFCP and H.323 with H.239, and HTTP Live Streaming features.

About the International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC)

The IMTC is an industry-leading, non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and facilitate the development and use of interoperable, real-time, multimedia telecommunication products and services based on open international standards. The IMTC hosts interoperability testing events and demonstrations throughout the world. IMTC has hosted more than 50 such events to test SIP, IMS, VoLTE, H.323, 3G-324M, 3G-PSS, Nat/Firewall Traversal, T.120, H .320, and other Voice over IP products and services with each other. The IMTC Board of Directors includes representatives from AT&T, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, HP, Huawei, LifeSize Communications, Nokia, Polycom, RADVISION and Vidyo. The San Ramon, California-based consortium comprises approximately 40 member organizations from around the globe. Membership is open to any interested party, including vendors of audio, document, and video conferencing hardware and software; academic institutions; government agencies; and non-profit organizations. “The IMTC is making Rich Media happen Anywhere, Anytime.” Further information on IMTC can be found at http://www.imtc.org.

Contact: Anatoli Levine, IMTC President

alevine@radvision.com

Paul Ritchie, IMTC Executive Director

pritchie@inventures.com

2400 Camino Ramon, Suite #375

San Ramon, CA 94583

+1.925.275.6600

• IMTC CTO Roundtable Presentations are now in our CTO Roundtable section at the blog.
  Videos from the event will be added soon, click here to check the CTO Roundtable section.
• IMTC President, Anatoli Lavine, has done an interview with Carl Ford from Crossfire Media at the ITEXPO show. In the interview Anatoli and Carl talk about the Video & SIP, VoLTE and Interoperability.

IMTC will be holding a SVC & QoE Workshop during our SuperOp!, May 16-20. This is an open call to all IMTC members to participate, AND, submit proposals for speaker slots and presentations. Please review the outline below, and if you have any interest, please contact me, or send your request to our IMTC Service Desk at Help@imtc.org.

What: IMTC SuperOp! SVC & QoE Workshop, May 18-19

When: Two Sessions to cover Time zone & Geography differences
· Session 1: Wednesday May 18, 3-5pm (local time Hawaii)
· Session 2: Thursday May 19, 9-11am (local time Hawaii)

SVC, QoE, and the Future of Video Communication

This workshop, organized as part of IMTC SuperOp! 2011, is intended to bring together experts in the field to discuss what SVC means to the videoconferencing and UC industries, what is missing in terms of standards support, and what steps should the industry take to ensure interoperability.

Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is the scalable extension of the H.264 video coding standard. Finalized in 2007, it promises to revolutionize the video communications industry due to its ability to simultaneously achieve increased adaptability to heterogeneity of endpoints and networks, provide very large scalability, obtain significantly improved error resilience, and enable very low delay even in multipoint sessions. Nearly all videoconferencing vendors today support it or have made announcements that that they will, and UC vendors are following suit. Contrary to just being an evolutionary codec upgrade, it may signal significant architectural changes in packet video communication.

Quality of Experience (QoE) refers to the perceived quality that a service or application offers to its users. It’s a purely subjective but extremely important measure of user satisfaction, and may have significant predictive value for the adoption of a service.
There is an ongoing argument in the industry that SVC will help significantly increase the QoE for video communication, and will thus enable the industry to grow alongside UC and other network-based services – this is one of the items which is expected to be discussed at the workshop.

IMTC is hosting this workshop to explore these issues, and offer our members the opportunity to present their views, and how their company, and IMTC, can help move this issue forward in the industry.

If you would like a time-slot on the agenda, Speaker proposals should be sent to our IMTC Service desk at Help@IMTC.org by April 4, 2011, and include the speaker’s name, affiliation, and presentation title.

Thank you for your attention to this important workshop and please mark you calendars to attend.
Regards, Paul Ritchie
IMTC Executive Director