At 05:09 PM 12/6/99 , Richard Dobson wrote:
>I have read the document, but I am still not really convinced it adds
>that much more that what is provided by the saol-dev lst and the current
>MIT site.
Hi Richard,
if you refer to the "forum" part, and technically speaking, I can agree
with you. Anyway in my mind this is an initiative to involve some more
people, still a little diffident at least on this side of the Channel,
proposing
a similar content in a different framework. If you don't catch the point
I can explain you better...
Concerning projects (second part), the same research centers and others
everywhere could take this as a mean to do a little, take all the rest, and
stay into a co-ordinated framework. Again in my mind, I see it as work in
MPEG (when it works) with the difference that the standard is already
there and what is shared are the solutions and the implementations.
If it's true that I consider SA one of the most innovative parts of MPEG-4,
still I believe that it is perhaps the only big part of MPEG-4 for which the
standard itself and reference software are built let's say at 95% around a
single
company/lab contribution.
Hats off to Eric and the Media Lab, but on the other hand this has kept SA
quite "crypted" to many parties, and now it seems to me that the same
many parties are interested but some of them simply don't have time/
resources/backgorund to advance in SA technology. My personal main
hope is to provide for SA a multi-person "maturation environment" like
it was not able to find in MPEG, for some reasons I don't want to discuss
here now.
>Is this SOAG dependent on SAINT being released into the public domain,
>or is the release of SAINT dependent on the creation of SOAG?
Let's say that I have, perhaps, a leg, and that I would have not liked the
idea to release it just for glory or shame without the possibility to build
the other. My activity will probably not allow to do that, at least in a
fully portable way, since studies and profilings are over and we will now
move to a proprietary platform with what we need for the full ThreeDSPACE
implementation.
So on my side SAOG is a try to put our results in an environment where
somebody cares and where it can still grow or give birth to something
else. Otherwise I would have kept it for myself and (hopingly) my
publications. Moreover: my fear is that being a small group of
an almost unknown lab so far (in audio at least), releasing such a software
without a partnership from the beginning could result in a framework
where everybody helps himself, if the case, and that's all.
Needless to say how much I am happy to start this consortium directly
with the MIT Media Lab.
All this does not mean that I will abandon direct involvement in SAINT and
try just to exploit other's work. I will still do all that I can.
I am also working hard to try to build a more consistent audio group here
(now we are only 3) but in this exact moment I am not able to assure
continuity
of research and implementation on the most cosidered aspect of SA (again,
so far)
and on the most considered platforms.
Just to answer directly to your questions: 1) No. I think to see concrete
need for an
initiative like that also without SAINT (but of course with an ongoing sw
project)
2) Not necessarily. But at least something as I explained above.
I hope that this e-mail has explained my position a bit more clearly; the EPFL
reasons for SAOG, or at least some of them.
My best regards,
Giorgio
__________________________________________________________________
Giorgio ZOIA
Integrated Systems Laboratory - DE/LSI - EPFL
CH-1015 Lausanne - SWITZERLAND
Phone: + 41 21 693 69 79 E-mail: Giorgio.Zoia@epfl.ch
Fax: +41 21 693 46 63
__________________________________________________________________
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