Activity Updates from Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP) TC

Contributed by Philip A. Chou (MMSP TC Chair 2010-2011)

The Multimedia Signal Processing Technical Committee (MMSP TC) promotes the advancement of multimedia signal processing technology with special emphasis on the interaction, coordination, synchronization, and joint processing of multimedia and multi-modality signals.  In the past, the TC has also served as a home for incubating new areas that do not fall neatly into areas covered by existing TCs.

The MMSP TC organizes annually the MMSP Workshops.  MMSP 2010 will be held October 4-6 in Saint-Malo, France, under the theme of entertainment, gaming and virtual reality.  Plenary/invited talks will be given by Ton Kalker (HP Labs), Bernard Grill (Fraunhofer), Stéphane Donikian (INRIA), Phil Chou (Microsoft), Levent Onural (Bilkent University), and Pier Luigi Dragotti (Imperial College London).  MMSP 2011 will be held in October in Hangzhou, China, under the theme of cloud-client multimedia computing.  Proposals for MMSP 2012 are being accepted by the Chair (pachou AT microsoft.com) through September 15, 2010.  The TC will evaluate these proposals at MMSP 2010.

The MMSP TC is also directly involved in steering and organizing the technical program for the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME), held annually in July under the sponsorship of four IEEE societies (Signal Processing, Computer, Communications, and Circuits and Systems).  Recently ICME has been revamped with a highly selective acceptance rate of at most 15% for oral papers and an additional 15% for poster presentations.  We aspire for learning to become a key characteristic of the revamped ICME, through tutorials, classes, keynotes, overviews, and of course learning the state-of-the-art directly from the principal researchers in the field.  Focused workshops are also an integral part of the conference.  In conjunction with ICME 2010, members of the TC organized the Hot3D workshop, which encouraged presentation of early stage, preliminary, and potentially disruptive technologies in 3D Multimedia.  ICME 2011 will be held July 11-15 in Barcelona, Spain, while ICME 2012 will be held in Melbourne, Australia.  A call for proposals for ICME 2013 and 2014 will be sent out shortly.

TC members are involved in publications such as the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, Transactions on Information Forensics & Security, Transactions on Image Processing, Signal Processing Letters, and Signal Processing Magazine.

New TC members are being sought for a three-year term, beginning January 1, 2011.  We are calling for nominations of high-profile multimedia signal processing researchers, who are willing to actively participate in TC activities, including paper reviews and award nominations. We particularly encourage nominations of female candidates and candidates representing Regions 7 (Canada) and 9 (Latin America).  Nominations should include (1) percentages of the top-level EDICS areas covered by the candidate, (2) a brief bio (less than 1 page in pure text format), and (3) a sentence stating that the candidate is willing to serve, such as "If elected to the TC, I agree to serve as an active member and will be IEEE Signal Processing Society member from Jan. 1, 2011 to December 31, 2013."  Nominations should be sent to the Chair of the membership subcommittee, Marco Tagliasacchi (marco.tagliasacchi AT polimi.it) by September 20, 2010.  Affiliate Members are always welcome to sign up here.  More information can be found at the TC website.