Fundamentals and Evolution of MPEG-2 Systems: Paving the MPEG Road

Preface

My first name is Jan, the Dutch version of John, nothing special. My last name is van der Meer, which, with some fantasy, means ‘from the Lake’. Again, nothing special, although I was born indeed very close to one of the various lakes in the north of the Netherlands, in an area considered by many Dutch people as one of the most backward regions in the Netherlands, though most of them never visited it. In fact, it is of course one of the most beautiful places in the world. Some may still recognize my origin from my articulation, as I refused to polish it; by no means do I wish to suggest coming from an unidentified region. Anyway, due to a lot of coincidences and some good reasons described elsewhere in this book, I got deeply involved in MPEG. That was special.

It is July 2007, MPEG is having its 81st meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. I attend again, and it is a special meeting for me, not because it is the 58th MPEG meeting that I attend, but because it will be my last one. During 18 years I came to most MPEG meetings, starting with the eighth MPEG meeting in 1989. I witnessed the standardization of MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and other MPEG standards. Though my initial focus was on video coding, most of my work was on MPEG-2 systems, addressing issues such as transport and synchronization of coded audio and video. Personally I am not a truly dedicated scientist, but more interested in making things work and less in the scientific considerations, though it is important to ...