Full Steam Ahead for DASH Industry Forum

The DASH Industry Forum (DASH-IF) announced that its membership continues to grown and the group is participating in the IBC 2014 conference, which begins next week.

For more information visit: www.dashif.org


Unedited press release follows:

DASH Industry Forum Gaining Momentum

DASH SuperSession Part of IBC 2014 Conference; New Interoperability Guidelines Released; New Members Include Google

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS–(Sep 3, 2014) – DASH Industry Forum (DASH-IF), the major advocacy body catalyzing the adoption of DASH as the new standard for over-the-top (OTT) adaptive bit rate (ABR) delivery of media to any device, announced today that their membership has grown to 74 member companies, now including Google, from the original six founding charter members in 2012.

“The adoption of DASH has accelerated even higher this year with both significant increase in membership, and deployment of the standard globally,” said Iraj Sodagar, Chairman of DASH-IF. “For instance, the use of DASH by YouTube, the world’s largest Internet streaming media source, underscores some of the advantages the DASH standard holds compared to legacy proprietary solutions.”

DASH-IF recently released its “DASH-IF Interoperability Points V3.0” Implementation Guidelines for community review. These guidelines include interoperability points for on-demand, live and time-shift streaming using AVC/H.264 and HEVC/H.265 codecs. The guidelines support default HE-AAC and optional multichannel audio codecs, SMPTE TT and CEA-608/708 closed caption formats, as well as common encryption (CENC) to support various DRM systems.

DASH-IF also released “Live Services based on DASH-IF IOPs V1.0” and “Ad Insertion in DASH V1.0” Implementation Guidelines for community review, which enable deployment of various use-cases for live services and dynamic ad insertion. In addition, DASH-IF published “DASH-IF Test Cases and Vectors V1.0” and “DASH-IF Conformance Software V1.0” which support the interoperability points. Finally, the open source dash.js project provides a reference player for DASH-IF Implementation Guidelines. The above guidelines are expected to be officially published after a two-month public comment period, and active public participation is encouraged. These documents can be accessed at: http://dashif.org/white-papers/.

As part of the IBC 2014 Conference taking place in Amsterdam from September 11-15, DASH-IF has organized a two-hour SuperSession focused on the use of MPEG-DASH technologies to deliver everything from user-generated content to 4K events and movies, including HbbTV and LTE broadcast. This SuperSession is being held on Saturday, September 13 in Room E102 of the RAI from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM and is open to all IBC attendees. It will feature speakers from operators, major technology companies and standards bodies including Google, HbbTV, IRT, KPN and Qualcomm.

“We felt that the adoption of DASH was a natural choice for adaptive streaming for HbbTV 1.5 and on,” said Klaus Illgner, Director at IRT and Chair of HbbTV. “Our members felt it represents the most efficient and versatile method of delivering all types of content over unmanaged or unpredictable networks, and it has the considerable advantage of being a global standard.”

DASH Industry Forum members are exhibiting at IBC 2014 in record numbers with over 31 members at this year’s show, including charter members Adobe, Akamai, Cisco, Dolby, DTS, Ericsson, Harmonic, Microsoft and Qualcomm.

In addition to the SuperSession, the DASH Industry Forum is holding an IBC Networking Reception at the The Heineken Experience at 6:00 PM on Sunday, September 14. Meet the executives, architects and engineers involved with this standard and find out about the latest products and initiatives related to DASH. Register online at: https://dash2014ibc.eventbrite.com.

About DASH Industry Forum
Formed in 2012, DASH-IF is the organization responsible for promoting market adoption of the MPEG-DASH standard for interoperable streaming of multimedia content over Internet. The organization publishes implementation guidelines, facilitates interoperability testing and collaborates with industry standards bodies to align standard development activities. It is dedicated to addressing the dynamic growth of broadband video by defining a universal delivery format that improves user experience by adapting to changing network conditions. Additional information about the organization and its 74 participating member companies is available at http://dashif.org.