Subject: Document Action: 'Requirements for an Internet Audio Codec' to Informational RFC (draft-ietf-codec-requirements-05.txt)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 09:10:35 -0700

The IESG has approved the following document:
- 'Requirements for an Internet Audio Codec'
  (draft-ietf-codec-requirements-05.txt) as an Informational RFC

This document is the product of the Internet Wideband Audio Codec Working
Group.

The IESG contact persons are Robert Sparks and Gonzalo Camarillo.

A URL of this Internet Draft is:
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-codec-requirements/

Technical Summary

  This document provides requirements for an audio codec designed
  specifically for use over the Internet.  The requirements attempt to
  address the needs of the most common Internet interactive audio
  transmission applications and to ensure good quality when operating
  in conditions that are typical for the Internet.  These requirements
  address the quality, sampling rate, delay, bit-rate, and packet loss
  robustness.  Other desirable codec properties are considered as well.

Working Group Summary

 The document was the subject of much discussion, as the work of the CODEC
 working group in general is contentious. The bulk of the controversy has been
 around requirements around which codecs need to be "beaten" by this one, which
 are summarized in section 5.2. Much of the debate was around whether comparisons
 should be done to encumbered codecs, or just other codecs which are currently
 believed to be unencumbered. There was only weak consensus on these points, with
 dissenters. The chairs elected to move forward with the document with the best
 view on consensus that could be achieved. There has also been a lot of
 discussion around what exactly needs to be tested, and it was agreed for
 detailed test plans to be out of scope for this document. Earlier on in the
 lifecycle of this document, there were numerous questions on requirements that
 were discussed, but little consensus around most of them, leading to relatively
 little change in the document based on the discussion. During the WGLC period,
 the chairs asked vocal group members to be very clear on what issues remained.
 Written comments were provided and addressed point-by-point to the satisfaction
 of the chairs.

Document Quality

 This document does not specify a protocol and therefore there are no
 implementations. However it has been looked at, and commented on, by numerous 
 experts in voice coding. As such, we believe that the document represents a set
 of requirements which are appropriate and comprehensive. 

Personnel

 Jonathan Rosenberg is the document shepherd.
 Robert Sparks is the responsible area director.