ISO and IEC tighten development deadlines for technical video standards

Accelerated timelines force streaming infrastructure committees to prioritize speed over exhaustive technical debate, potentially rushing complex standards for AI security and immersive video. While this prevents the multi-year 'development hell' that has historically slowed codec and protocol adoption, it raises the bar for project management and early-stage consensus. Platforms and hardware vendors should expect more frequent, iterative updates rather than monolithic multi-decadal standards. Stakeholders must watch for deliberate procedural delays used by national bodies to sabotage competing technical interests under these new 'drop-dead' dates.

The shift toward faster standardization comes as major technical bodies struggle to keep pace with rapid innovation in video compression and security. Per MPEG.org, recent work on Versatile Supplemental Enhancement Messages (VSEI) for AI-generated faces and neural network-based filtering is already targeting a 2026 finalization date. These projects reflect an industry-wide push to codify AI and metadata standards as the market for streamed content is projected to exceed $670 billion by 2026, according to CDNetworks reporting in January 2026.

The organizational cleanup also addresses long-standing fragmentation between ISO and IEC procedures. By merging the ISO, IEC, and JTC 1 supplements into a single 130-page reference—a 50% reduction in complexity per IEC documentation from July 2026—the bodies aim to foster 'IT convergence.' This is particularly critical for the JTC 1/SC 27 committee, which manages the ISO 27001 cybersecurity family. After the three-year transition period for the 2022 edition closed in October 2025, entities are now required to integrate 2024 environmental amendments into their security management systems, according to Konfirmity reporting in December 2025.

Simultaneously, the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) is managing aggressive timelines for next-generation video coding beyond VVC (H.266). Per MPEG.org in March 2026, the call for proposals for next-gen compression is scheduled for late 2026, with a targeted standard finalization by 2029. These new ISO/IEC deadlines ensure that such massive technical undertakings cannot drift indefinitely, though experts warn that the 36-month limit may force committees to skip resolving minor technical comments to ensure publication.