Research Intern - Video coding research and standardization Microsoft
Redmond, WA

Job Description

Empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. That's what inspires us, drives our work and pushes us to challenge the status quo every day. At Microsoft, we also work to empower our employees, so they can achieve more. We believe we should each find meaning in our work and we ensure employees have the freedom and the reach to help make a difference in the world.

Microsoft Research provides a dynamic environment for research careers with a network of world-class research labs led by globally-recognized scientists and engineers. Our researchers and engineers pursue innovation in a range of scientific and technical disciplines, to help solve complex challenges in diverse fields, including computing, healthcare, economics, and the environment.

Digital media coding, storage, and streaming have been a focus of extensive research, standardization, and product development in many companies for at least three decades. Recent developments in industry consortia and standardization efforts for video coding include the HEVC standard (ITU-T H.265 | ISO/IEC 23008-2) of the JCT-VC team of ITU-T VCEG and ISO/IEC MPEG, the AV1 technology of the Alliance for Open Media, the Audio Video Standard (AVS) projects of China, and the draft Versatile Video Coding standard (VVC) of the JVET team of ITU-T VCEG and ISO/IEC MPEG. Each of these video coding technologies could become the next successor to the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard as the dominant format for future video coding. The office of the Chief Scientist at Microsoft Research includes a focus on media technology and its standardization, which has included substantial participation in these recent industry efforts. Video compression is an especially important area since the amount of data that is stored and transmitted on today's worldwide communication networks is dominated by video. Video traffic has been estimated to comprise about 75% of the data transmitted on IP networks, and the amount of that data has been rising both in absolute and percentage terms.

Required Qualifications

* Must be currently enrolled in a PhD program in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related STEM field.
* Must have at least 1 year of experience with the design principles, rate-distortion analysis, and development of innovative techniques for video coding technology.

Preferred Qualifications

* Demonstrated ability to develop original video coding techniques.
* Demonstrated ability to write papers for peer-reviewed conference and journal publications on video coding technology design and analysis.
* At least 1 year of experience using and modifying the official reference software codebases for the video coding technologies known as H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, HEVC, AV1, AVS, the JVET JEM, and VVC.
* Experience with effective participation in industry consortia or standards development organizations - especially ITU-T VCEG, ISO/IEC MPEG, JVET, JCT-VC, JCT-3V, JVT, JPEG, AOMedia, AVS, and SMPTE.
* Must be able to collaborate effectively with other researchers and product development teams.
* Must have a deep understanding of rate-distortion analysis and quantization for video coding.
* Excellent interpersonal skills, cross-group and cross-culture collaboration.
* Familiarity with objective and subjective video quality measurement is highly desirable.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

Interns put inquiry and theory into practice. Alongside fellow doctoral candidates and some of the world's best researchers, interns learn, collaborate, and network for life. Interns not only advance their own careers, but they also contribute to exciting research and development strides. During the internship period lasting about 12 weeks, students are paired with mentors and expected to collaborate with other interns and researchers, present findings, and contribute to the vibrant life of the community. Research internships are available in all areas of research, and are offered year-round.

This internship is planned for September - December 2019. The exact timing will be determined by coordination between the candidate and mentor.

This internship will include work to analyze video and image coding technology, including the draft VVC standard, HEVC, AV1, and possibly others. Simulation work will be needed to analyze rate-distortion performance and complexity characteristics using standards-development reference software and possibly other software codebases. Development of modified or new software will also be needed. New technology designs may be developed and tested. Such designs may also be proposed for inclusion in industry standards and may be protected by patent application filings.

Topics of potential study in this internship include high-level syntax, multi-picture referencing structures, special frame types, temporal filtering, quantization effects, bit rate control, subjective and pseudo-subjective video quality measurements, color transforms (within or outside of the decoding process), screen content coding, 4:4:4 color format, scalable layered coding, multi-generation encoding effects, and syntax-compatible encoding optimizations.