NIST Digital Media Group: research

Digital Media Group (DMG)
DMG Research Areas

Currently, the Digital Media Group is focusing on the following projects and tasks:

Digital Physical Media and Devices
- Conduct reliability and longevity testing of DVD media by monitoring its response to increased levels of humidity and temperature. Results based on initial study of error rates in harsh conditions are being published.
- Develop test methodologies and diagnostic software to check readability and compatibility between DVD drives and various brands of media.
- Work with industry to develop DVD archival grading system to distinguish different levels of quality for DVD products. A testing methodology shall be developed to verity the proposed grading system.
- Government Information Preservation Working Group. Coordinate across government agencies to resolve problems and concerns with the overall preservation strategies, in particular with regard to storage media such as DVD and CD. The group also recommends needed research areas to solve long term storage problems.
- Engage emerging optical storage technologies. Continue to monitor and engage emerging technologies in physical media and their devices so that the standards can be created and be compliant.
Digital Media Quality
- Research quality metrology for basic aspects of motion imagery including measurement of display dynamic range, measurement of display temporal response, and response of users perspective.
- Research motion imagery quality metric for image interpretation including developing a test plan for initial study, collecting test imagery, conducting trials, analyzing/assessing analyst’s responses to determine consistent measurement scale.
- Design and execute Verification Tests for the MPEG Advanced Video Codec. DMQ is assessing subjective quality of compressed high definition motion imagery (test compression).
- Shoot and edit video material for NIMA (interpretability)
- Develop basic metrology for video motion (first target: motion smoothness)
- Demonstrate video motion metrology using video data files and using screen capture.
Digital Media Content
- Research and develop standard content description technologies and algorithms to index and retrieve multimedia contents such as audio, image, video, and text.
- Produce reference software and testing bitstreams for the standard content description technology.
- Develop general tools and utilities such as parsers, generators, and converters to help speed up the standard development process.
- Create centralized repository for hosting reference software, tools and utilities, and testing bitstreams for various content description technologies.
- Develop validator for conformance testing between testing bitstreams and standard specifications.
- Create multimedia test bed for interoperability testing between vendors and implementations.
- Collaborate with other standard bodies and industries to further develop standard digital media content technology.
- Foster awareness of the digital media content technology in industry via conferences, workshops, and awareness events.