Preface

	Next chapter
Table of Contents	An Introduction

Riding the Media Bits is the history of the third of a century that changed the life of most humans on Earth. A span of time covering a world when media was scarce, in the hands of few, and “confined” to a locale, up to the current world when media is abundant and can be potentially produced by and distributed to anybody.

The current state of affairs is the result of a shining positive force that, leveraging the maturing digital technologies and waving the flag of “standards” with a new formula, provided the means for today’s seamless world-wide media communication among humans.

That ride lasted 32 years. Then  the healthy growth of the new world was hijacked by obscure forces. MPEG, the group that invented the new way of standard making that made seamless media communication possible and accessible to the billions, is reduced to splinters. The history of where those forces will now lead the world is still to be written but the contribution made by MPEG to the progress of humankind stays.

Leonardo is the first name of the Riding the Media Bits’ author. He had the idea of uniting the world with media communication standards at a time when the technology of media representation changed from analogue to digital. For 32 years, he was lucky enough to enjoy the support of the best minds involved in digital media research. They distilled their knowledge and made the 200 plus standards that bear the MPEG name and made Leonardo’s vision possible.

Here and there the story is interspersed with pieces of history related to other efforts by Leonardo to implement his vision. They are useful reading but the reader will be informed when these pages leave the streambed of MPEG history.

Good reading!

	Next chapter
Table of Contents	An introduction