Professor C.-C. Jay Kuo, Director of MCL, attended the Picture Coding Symposium (PCS) in Taichung, Taiwan, from June 12-14, 2024. Professor Kuo was invited to be a panelist for a panel program. The discussion topic was “Learned Image and Video Coding: Hype or Hope?” (see https://2024.picturecodingsymposium.org/panel/). All six panelists were optimistic about researching and developing learned image and video coding technologies for various reasons. Professor Kuo emphasized the differences between the classical and the modern learned coding methodologies. The former considers intra-content redundancy removal, while the latter examines inter-content redundancy removal. The former has been researched for four decades and reached its maturity. It isn’t easy to push further. The latter does have more opportunities. On the other hand, Professor Kuo was concerned about the high complexity and black-box nature of neural network codecs. He suggested an alternative non-neural-network-based approach to implement learned image and video codecs.
After PCS, Professor Kuo went to Taipei for a reunion luncheon with MCL alums on June 15 (Saturday). Professor Kuo said, “It was a relaxing time during a busy week. Seeing our alums doing well in their careers and families was great.”