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About the Author

Jan van der Meer is born in 1947 in Burgum, a small village in the province Fryslân in the North of the Netherlands. He received his MS in Electronic Engineering in 1978 from the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Jan has a broad interest; during his study, he investigated macro-economic options to improve employment by at the same time reducing labor charges and increasing the value-added tax, which resulted in two published papers. But Jan decided to pursue a career in electronic engineering by joining Philips in 1979, where he became (co-)inventor of 12 patents.
Throughout his career within Philips, Jan's task has been to interface between Research and Product Development, to make new technology from Research suitable for product usage. From this perspective, Jan has been involved in the creation of a series of standards and products for Optical Media, Broadcast, Mobile, and Internet.
Jan played a leading role in the MPEG standards committee almost from its very beginning and contributed not only to the developments of the MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 standards, but also to their usage in specific application areas, such as specified by 3GPP, DAVIC, DVB, IETF, and ISMA. Jan is worldwide acknowledged for his contributions to MPEG and other standard bodies.
Below are the most important activities Jan was involved in.
In the early and mid-1980s, Jan developed various consumer product prototypes such as a (hand held) electronic translator, a video editor for VCRs and Camcorders, and a Picture in Picture feature to extend TV sets; the latter included the development of an IC.
The HDMAC System, the analog High Definition TV System developed in Europe in the late 80s, jointly with other CE companies and broadcasters within a European Project. Here, Jan initially worked with Philips Research to develop the HDMAC coding algorithm, followed by developing prototype hardware for demonstration purposes and ICs for Philips HDMAC products.
In 1989, Jan became Manager of the so-called Full Motion Video (FMV) Project intending to store movies and video clips on a Compact Disc. During this project, he became involved in MPEG, upon which Jan became the FMV System Architect, keeping track of ongoing product development on one hand and MPEG standardization on the other. The project was successfully concluded by the FMV extension for CD-I players, implemented on a plug-in cartridge. Moreover, the Video CD standard was produced that became very successful in the Far East.
Around 1993, Jan moved to the TV Group within Philips Consumer Electronics, where he became involved in Digital Broadcast Products development. He was involved in defining the architecture of digital TV Set-Top Boxes and designing ICs for such STBs. Meanwhile, he represented Philips in MPEG, where he chaired the MPEG Systems Group from 1994 until 1996 to complete the MPEG-2 Systems standard.
With a few short interruptions, Jan continued to represent Philips in MPEG until 2007. After chairing the MPEG Systems Group, he became editor of various MPEG-2 System amendments, such as:
  • Transport over MPEG-2 Systems of MPEG-4 streams
  • Transport over MPEG-2 Systems of Metadata and MPEG-7 streams
  • Transport over MPEG-2 Systems of AVC (H.264 / MPEG-4 part 10) streams
  • In MPEG, Jan was furthermore editor of MPEG-4 part 10 on streaming text.
  • DVB, the Digital Video Broadcasting organization in charge of defining specifications for digital broadcast services. Jan represented Philips in DVB on issues related to coding of audio and video and on subtitling from 1994 until 2007.
  • DAVIC, a consortium to develop a complete End-to-End System for Video on Demand services. In DAVIC, Jan chaired the group in charge of defining functionalities that DAVIC compliant STBs must support.
  • UK DTG, the Digital Television Group in the UK in charge of defining the Digital Broadcast System for the UK; here, Jan successfully promoted the use of MHEG-5 as an API.
  • W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium; from 1997 until Philip's withdrawal from W3C in 2003, Jan represented Philips in the Advisory Committee of W3C.
  • IETF, the Internet Engineering Task Force. Within the Audio and Video Transport (AVT) group in IETF, Jan got involved in the transport of MPEG-4 streams over IP; he became editor of RFC 3640, which later became the basis for the ISMACryp specification.
  • 3GPP, where Jan promoted MPEG-4 audio and video coding technology for use in mobile applications.
  • ISMA, the Internet Streaming Media Alliance, in charge of defining End-to-End systems for Streaming of Audio and Video over IP, where Jan represented Philips from 2001 until 2008.
  • MPEGIF, the MPEG Industry Forum, in charge of promoting MPEG technology, Jan has been a member of the MPEGIF Board of Directors from 2003 until 2007.
  • Ir. J. van der Meer, "Bruto-winstnivellering ter bestrijding van werkloosheid" (in Dutch), Economisch Statistische Berichten, 7 Februari 1979, ESB Jaargang 64, No 3191, page 145-149
  • Ir. J. van der Meer, "Arbeidsplaatsenbeleid, sociale verzekeringen en indirecte belastingen" (in Dutch), Sociaal Maandblad Arbeid, Februari 1980, SMA Jaargang 35, No 2, page 111-118
  • F.W.P. Vreeswijk, W. Jonker, J.R.G.M. Leenen and J. van der Meer, "An HD-MAC Coding System", Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Signal Processing of HDTV, L'Aquila, Italy, 29 February – 2 March 1988
  • J. van der Meer, C.M. Carey-Smith, K. Rohra, F.W.P. Vreeswijk, "Movement Processing for an HD-MAC Coding System", Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Signal Processing of HDTV, L'Aquila, Italy, 29 February – 2 March 1988
  • J. van der Meer, H.W.A. Begas, F.W.P. Vreeswijk, "The Architecture of an HD-MAC Decoder", Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Signal Processing of HDTV, L'Aquila, Italy, 29 February – 2 March 1988
  • Frans Sijstermans and Jan van der Meer, "CD-I Full Motion Video Encoding on a Parallel Computer", Communications of the ACM, April 1991, Vol. 34, no 4, page 81 – 91
  • Jan van der Meer, "The Full Motion System for CD-I", IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, Vol. 38, No. 4, November 1992, page 910 – 920; a derived paper in Japanese is found in the Nikkei Electronics Books' Data Compression and Digital Transmission' published in 1993, page 123 – 136
  • Jan van der Meer and Koen Huizer, "Interoperability between different Interactive Engines, Problems and Ways of Solutions"; Symposium Record Programme Production, 20th International Television Symposium Montreux, 12 – 17 June 1997, page 484
  • Jan van der Meer and Cornelis (Koen) M. Huizer, "MHEG/JAVA Enhanced Broadcasting, the competitive edge", Tagungsband 18. Jahrestagung der FKTG (Ferhseh- and Kinotechnische Geselllschaft e.V), 11. bis 14. Mai, 1998, Erfurt, page 555 – 565
  • Jan van der Meer and Peter B. Kaars, "The Bridge Between Internet and Broadcast," Proceedings SCTE (Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers) Conference on Emerging Technologies, January 11 – 13, 2000, Anaheim, CA, page 255 – 263
  • Jan van der Meer, "Enhanced Broadcast Services with Complimentary Delivery over IP," Technical Papers 49th Annual NTCA (National Cable Television Association) Convention, May 7 – 10, 2000, New Orleans, LA, page 34 – 39
  • Willms Buhse and Jan van der Meer, "The Open Mobile Alliance Digital Rights Management," IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, Vol. 24, no 1, January 2007, page 140 – 143
From the mid-1990s onwards, Jan discussed and promoted the use of MPEG technologies in a large variety of standardization bodies, such as:
In 2002 and 2003, Jan got involved in licensing discussions on AVC (a.k.a. H.264 and MPEG-4 part 10) to provide "market feedback" on licensing terms, upon which he joined in 2003 the Intellectual Property & Standardization (IP&S) department in Philips, where he has been Director Standardization until July 1, 2008.
Within IP&S, Jan managed various research projects in Philips related to the coding of audio and video.
From June 2004 – June 2008, Jan chaired the OMA DRM WG, the Working Group in the Open Mobile Alliance responsible for developing the OMA DRM System. The OMA DRM 2.0 specification was completed under his responsibility, and the OMA DRM 2.1, SRM 1.0, and SCE 1.0 specifications were defined. In recognition of his leadership, Jan received in June 2008 the Contributor and Achievement Award from OMA.
On July 1, 2008, Jan retired from Philips; he is currently an independent consultant, located in Heeze, near Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

Publications

  • Ir. J. van der Meer, "Bruto-winstnivellering ter bestrijding van werkloosheid" (in Dutch), Economisch Statistische Berichten, 7 Februari 1979, ESB Jaargang 64, No 3191, page 145-149
  • Ir. J. van der Meer, "Arbeidsplaatsenbeleid, sociale verzekeringen en indirecte belastingen" (in Dutch), Sociaal Maandblad Arbeid, Februari 1980, SMA Jaargang 35, No 2, page 111-118
  • F.W.P. Vreeswijk, W. Jonker, J.R.G.M. Leenen and J. van der Meer, "An HD-MAC Coding System", Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Signal Processing of HDTV, L'Aquila, Italy, 29 February – 2 March 1988
  • J. van der Meer, C.M. Carey-Smith, K. Rohra, F.W.P. Vreeswijk, "Movement Processing for an HD-MAC Coding System", Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Signal Processing of HDTV, L'Aquila, Italy, 29 February – 2 March 1988
  • J. van der Meer, H.W.A. Begas, F.W.P. Vreeswijk, "The Architecture of an HD-MAC Decoder", Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Signal Processing of HDTV, L'Aquila, Italy, 29 February – 2 March 1988
  • Frans Sijstermans and Jan van der Meer, "CD-I Full Motion Video Encoding on a Parallel Computer", Communications of the ACM, April 1991, Vol. 34, no 4, page 81 – 91
  • Jan van der Meer, "The Full Motion System for CD-I", IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, Vol. 38, No. 4, November 1992, page 910 – 920; a derived paper in Japanese is found in the Nikkei Electronics Books' Data Compression and Digital Transmission' published in 1993, page 123 – 136
  • Jan van der Meer and Koen Huizer, "Interoperability between different Interactive Engines, Problems and Ways of Solutions"; Symposium Record Programme Production, 20th International Television Symposium Montreux, 12 – 17 June 1997, page 484
  • Jan van der Meer and Cornelis (Koen) M. Huizer, "MHEG/JAVA Enhanced Broadcasting, the competitive edge", Tagungsband 18. Jahrestagung der FKTG (Ferhseh- and Kinotechnische Geselllschaft e.V), 11. bis 14. Mai, 1998, Erfurt, page 555 – 565
  • Jan van der Meer and Peter B. Kaars, "The Bridge Between Internet and Broadcast," Proceedings SCTE (Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers) Conference on Emerging Technologies, January 11 – 13, 2000, Anaheim, CA, page 255 – 263
  • Jan van der Meer, "Enhanced Broadcast Services with Complimentary Delivery over IP," Technical Papers 49th Annual NTCA (National Cable Television Association) Convention, May 7 – 10, 2000, New Orleans, LA, page 34 – 39
  • Willms Buhse and Jan van der Meer, "The Open Mobile Alliance Digital Rights Management," IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, Vol. 24, no 1, January 2007, page 140 – 143

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Jan van der Meer Consultancy
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