Gary Sullivan (engineer)

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Gary Joseph Sullivan (born 1960) is an American electrical engineer who led the development of the AVC, HEVC, and VVC video coding standards and created the DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) API/DDI video decoding feature of the Microsoft Windows operating system. He is currently Director of Video Research and Standards at Dolby Laboratories and is the chair of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 (Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information – the committee that oversees JPEG and MPEG standardization) and of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG).

Contents

He was the chairman and a co-founder of the Joint Video Team (JVT) standardization committee that developed the H.264/AVC standard, and he personally edited large portions of it. In January 2010, he became a founding co-chairman of the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) and an editor for developing the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. In October 2015, he became a founding co-chairman of the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) that developed the Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard. He has also led and contributed to a number of other video and image related standardization projects such as extensions of ITU-T H.263 video coding, multiview and 3D video coding for AVC and HEVC, and JPEG XR image coding. He has also published research work on various topics relating to video and image compression.

Biography

Sullivan was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended the Ascension and St. Margaret Mary elementary schools and Trinity High School, graduating in 1978. [1] He received B.S. and M.Eng. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Louisville J. B. Speed School of Engineering, Kentucky, in 1982 and 1983, respectively. [2] He received Ph.D. and Engineer degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1991.

Sullivan joined Dolby Labs as Director of Video Research and Standards in 2023. [3] [4]

From 1999 to 2022, Sullivan was a Video and Image Technology Architect at Microsoft Corporation. [5] [6] [7] [8] At Microsoft he also designed and remains lead engineer for the DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) API/DDI video decoding feature of the Microsoft Windows operating system platform. [2] His DXVA designs include decoding acceleration schemes for H.261, MPEG-1 Part 2, H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2, H.263, MPEG-4 Part 2, H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10: AVC, Windows Media Video versions 8 and 9, VC-1, Scalable Video Coding, Multiview Video Coding, and HEVC.

Prior to joining Microsoft, he was the manager of communications core research at PictureTel Corporation, the former world leader in videoconferencing communication. He was previously a Howard Hughes Fellow and member of technical staff in the Advanced Systems Division of Hughes Aircraft Company, and a terrain-following radar system software engineer for Texas Instruments.

Awards

Recognitions and awards for Sullivan and the projects he has led in the standardization community have included the following:

Leadership

Sullivan has held the following chairmanships in video coding standardization organizations:

The JVT, JCT-VC, JCT-3V, and JVET have been joint projects between the VCEG and MPEG organizations.

See also

Related Research Articles

H.263 is a video compression standard originally designed as a low-bit-rate compressed format for videotelephony. It was standardized by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) in a project ending in 1995/1996. It is a member of the H.26x family of video coding standards in the domain of the ITU-T.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moving Picture Experts Group</span> Alliance of working groups to set standards for multimedia coding

The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by ISO and IEC that sets standards for media coding, including compression coding of audio, video, graphics, and genomic data; and transmission and file formats for various applications. Together with JPEG, MPEG is organized under ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 – Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MPEG-2</span> Video encoding standard

MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods, which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission bandwidth. While MPEG-2 is not as efficient as newer standards such as H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC, backwards compatibility with existing hardware and software means it is still widely used, for example in over-the-air digital television broadcasting and in the DVD-Video standard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advanced Video Coding</span> Most widely used standard for video compression

Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distribution of video content, used by 91% of video industry developers as of September 2019. It supports a maximum resolution of 8K UHD.

MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual is a video compression format developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standards. It uses block-wise motion compensation and a discrete cosine transform (DCT), similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 Part 2 and H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2.

The Video Coding Experts Group or Visual Coding Experts Group is a working group of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) concerned with standards for compression coding of video, images, audio, and other signals. It is responsible for standardization of the "H.26x" line of video coding standards, the "T.8xx" line of image coding standards, and related technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Wiegand</span> German electrical engineer (born 1970)

Thomas Wiegand is a German electrical engineer who substantially contributed to the creation of the H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and H.266/VVC video coding standards. For H.264/AVC, Wiegand was one of the chairmen of the Joint Video Team (JVT) standardization committee that created the standard and was the chief editor of the standard itself. He was also a very active technical contributor to the H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and H.266/VVC video coding standards. Wiegand also holds a chairmanship position in the ITU-T VCEG of ITU-T Study Group 16 and previously in ISO/IEC MPEG standardization organizations. In July 2006, video coding work of the ITU-T was jointly led by Gary J. Sullivan and Wiegand for the preceding six years. It was voted as the most influential area of the standardization work of the CCITT and ITU-T in their 50-year history. Since 2018, Wiegand has served as chair of the ITU/WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health (FG-AI4H). Since 2014, Thomson Reuters named Wiegand in their list of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” as one of the most cited researchers in his field.

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding. In comparison to AVC, HEVC offers from 25% to 50% better data compression at the same level of video quality, or substantially improved video quality at the same bit rate. It supports resolutions up to 8192×4320, including 8K UHD, and unlike the primarily 8-bit AVC, HEVC's higher fidelity Main 10 profile has been incorporated into nearly all supporting hardware.

Michael J. Horowitz is an American electrical engineer who actively participated in the creation of the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and H.265/HEVC video coding standards. He is co-inventor of flexible macroblock ordering (FMO) and tiles, essential features in H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and H.265/HEVC, respectively. He is managing partner of Applied Video Compression and has served on the technical advisory boards of Vivox, Inc., Vidyo, Inc., and RipCode, Inc.

The ISO base media file format (ISOBMFF) is a container file format that defines a general structure for files that contain time-based multimedia data such as video and audio. It is standardized in ISO/IEC 14496-12, a.k.a. MPEG-4 Part 12, and was formerly also published as ISO/IEC 15444-12, a.k.a. JPEG 2000 Part 12.

A video coding format is a content representation format of digital video content, such as in a data file or bitstream. It typically uses a standardized video compression algorithm, most commonly based on discrete cosine transform (DCT) coding and motion compensation. A specific software, firmware, or hardware implementation capable of compression or decompression in a specific video coding format is called a video codec.

High Efficiency Video Coding tiers and levels are constraints that define a High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) bitstream in terms of maximum bit rate, maximum luma sample rate, maximum luma picture size, minimum compression ratio, maximum number of slices allowed, and maximum number of tiles allowed. Lower tiers are more constrained than higher tiers and lower levels are more constrained than higher levels.

Coding tree unit (CTU) is the basic processing unit of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) video standard and conceptually corresponds in structure to macroblock units that were used in several previous video standards. CTU is also referred to as largest coding unit (LCU).

MPEG-H is a group of international standards under development by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It has various "parts" – each of which can be considered a separate standard. These include a media transport protocol standard, a video compression standard, an audio compression standard, a digital file format container standard, three reference software packages, three conformance testing standards, and related technologies and technical reports. The group of standards is formally known as ISO/IEC 23008 – High efficiency coding and media delivery in heterogeneous environments. Development of the standards began around 2010, and the first fully approved standard in the group was published in 2013. Most of the standards in the group have been revised or amended several times to add additional extended features since their first edition.

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29, entitled Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information, is a standardization subcommittee of the Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). It develops and facilitates international standards, technical reports, and technical specifications within the field of audio, picture, multimedia, and hypermedia information coding. SC 29 includes the well-known JPEG and MPEG experts groups, and the standards developed by SC 29 have been recognized by nine Emmy Awards.

The YCoCg color model, also known as the YCgCo color model, is the color space formed from a simple transformation of an associated RGB color space into a luma value and two chroma values called chrominance green (Cg) and chrominance orange (Co). It is supported in video and image compression designs such as H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, HEVC, VVC, JPEG XR, and Dirac. It is simple to compute, has good transform coding gain, and can be losslessly converted to and from RGB with fewer bits than are needed with other color models. A reversible scaled version with even lower bit depth, YCoCg-R, is also supported in most of these designs and is also used in Display Stream Compression. The more complete definition with variable bit depths of Y and chrominance values is given in ITU-T H.273.

High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a container format for storing individual digital images and image sequences. The standard covers multimedia files that can also include other media streams, such as timed text, audio and video.

Internet Video Coding is a video coding standard. IVC was created by MPEG, and was intended to be a royalty-free video coding standard for use on the Internet, as an alternative to non-free formats such as AVC and HEVC. As such, IVC was designed to only use coding techniques which were not covered by royalty-requiring patents.

Versatile Video Coding (VVC), also known as H.266, ISO/IEC 23090-3, and MPEG-I Part 3, is a video compression standard finalized on 6 July 2020, by the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET), a joint video expert team of the VCEG working group of ITU-T Study Group 16 and the MPEG working group of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29. It is the successor to High Efficiency Video Coding. It was developed with two primary goals – improved compression performance and support for a very broad range of applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ITU-T Study Group 16</span> Standardization body focused on multimedia standards, such as video coding standards (e.g. MP4)

The ITU-T Study Group 16 (SG16) is a statutory group of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) concerned with multimedia coding, systems and applications, such as video coding standards. It is responsible for standardization of the "H.26x" line of video coding standards, the "T.8xx" line of image coding standards, and related technologies, as well as various collaborations with the World Health Organization, including on safe listing (H.870) accessibility of e-health (F.780.2), it is also the parent body of VCEG and various Focus Groups, such as the ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health and its AI for Health Framework.

References

  1. ↑ "Gary Sullivan '78 wins IEEE Award". Trinity High School. August 16, 2011. Archived from the original on December 14, 2014. Retrieved 2014-09-29.
  2. 1 2 "Gary Sullivan Leads Engineering Team to Emmy Award". University of Louisville J. B. Speed School of Engineering. March 17, 2009. Archived from the original on June 17, 2015. Retrieved 2015-06-17.
  3. ↑ "SG16 – List of Questions and Rapporteurs (Study Period 2022–2024)". International Telecommunication Union . Retrieved 2023-12-27.
  4. ↑ "Gary J. Sullivan". LinkedIn . Retrieved 2023-12-27.
  5. ↑ Data Compression Conference (DCC 2013), March 2013.
  6. ↑ Gary J. Sullivan biography, Visual Communication and Image Processing (VCIP 2012),[ dead link ] November 2012.
  7. 1 2 Knies, Rob; Microsoft Research (2011). "Video Architect, Microsoft Research Collaborator Wins IEEE Award". Archived from the original on 2012-10-12. Retrieved 2011-08-30.
  8. 1 2 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Communication Society (2011). "IEEE CCNC Panelist biographies". Archived from the original on 2013-04-14. Retrieved 2011-02-28.
  9. ↑ "Global computing association names 57 fellows for outstanding contributions that propel technology today". Association for Computing Machinery. January 18, 2023. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
  10. ↑ "Fellow Memberships Conferred in 2022". Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers . Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  11. ↑ "Gary J. Sullivan". Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers . Retrieved 2022-12-21.
  12. ↑ "Digital Processing Medal: Gary J. Sullivan". Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers . Retrieved 2019-10-25.
  13. ↑ "Digital Processing Medal Recipients: 2019: Gary J. Sullivan". Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers . Retrieved 2019-10-25.
  14. ↑ Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (October 4, 2017). "Gary Sullivan and team to receive an Engineering Emmy" . Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  15. ↑ "69th Engineering Emmy Awards: Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding wins Emmy Award". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences . November 1, 2017. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  16. ↑ "ITU, ISO and IEC receive another Primetime Emmy for video compression". International Telecommunication Union . October 26, 2017. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  17. ↑ "Engineering Emmy Award for HEVC Standard". RWTH Aachen University . November 2, 2017. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  18. ↑ Roach, John (September 29, 2017). "Primetime Engineering Emmy Award goes to HEVC, a key technology behind ultra-high definition TV". Microsoft Research . Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  19. 1 2 "CSVT Transactions – Best Paper Award". IEEE Circuits and Systems Society . Retrieved 2019-10-25.
  20. ↑ Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (2009). "SPIE Fellows: 59 New SPIE Fellows Elected". Archived from the original on 2009-03-09. Retrieved 2009-04-21.
  21. ↑ National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (2008). "Honorees Announced for 60th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards". Archived from the original on 2009-03-27. Retrieved 2009-04-21.
  22. ↑ Dolby Laboratories (August 21, 2008). "Dolby Congratulates the Joint Video Team Standards Committee on Its 2008 Primetime Emmy for Developing the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2009-09-17. Retrieved 2009-04-21.
  23. ↑ Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (2008). "Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Announces Recipients for the 2008 Primetime Emmy Engineering Awards". Archived from the original on 2009-02-03. Retrieved 2009-04-21.
  24. ↑ "IMTC Leadership and Service Awards". International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium. 2008. Retrieved 2012-03-24.
  25. ↑ Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (2008). "Recipients of the IEEE International Symposium on Consumer Electronics Engineering Excellence Award". Archived from the original on 2008-08-30. Retrieved 2009-04-21.
  26. ↑ Ward, B. (2008). "IEEE Announces 2006 Fellows". Computer. 39 (2). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers: 79–83. doi:10.1109/MC.2006.59.
  27. ↑ ITU-T Newslog (October 2, 2006). "Video Coding Work Voted Most Influential". Archived from the original on 2007-09-30.
  28. ↑ International Committee on Technology Standards (2005). "INCITS Awards Honor Roll". Archived from the original on 2008-05-17.

Video coding standardization organizations

Video coding standards

DirectX Video Acceleration

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