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Information about Mpeg 4

MPEG-4 is a standard used primarily to compress audio and visual (AV) digital data. Introduced in late 1998, it is the designation for a group of audio and video coding standards and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) under the formal standard ISO/IEC 14496. The uses for the MPEG-4 standard are web (streaming media) and CD distribution, conversation (videophone), and broadcast television, all of which benefit from compressing the AV stream.

MPEG-4 absorbs many of the features of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 and other related standards, adding new features such as (extended) VRML support for 3D rendering, object-oriented composite files (including audio, video and VRML objects), support for externally-specified Digital Rights Management and various types of interactivity. AAC (Advanced Audio Codec) was standardized as an adjunct to MPEG-2 (as Part 7) before MPEG-4 was issued.

MPEG-4 is still a developing standard and is divided into a number of parts. Unfortunately the companies promoting MPEG-4 compatibility do not always clearly state which "part" level compatibility. The key parts to be aware of are MPEG-4 part 2 (MPEG-4 SP/ASP, used by codecs such as DivX, Xvid, Nero Digital and 3ivx and by Quicktime 6) and MPEG-4 part 10 (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, used by the x264 codec, by Nero Digital AVC, by Quicktime 7, and by next-gen DVD formats like HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc).

Most of the features included in MPEG-4 are left to individual developers to decide whether to implement them. This means that there are probably no complete implementations of the entire MPEG-4 set of standards. To deal with this, the standard includes the concept of "profiles" and "levels", allowing a specific set of capabilities to be defined in a manner appropriate for a subset of applications.

Overview

MPEG-4 provides a series of technologies for developers, for various service-providers and for end users.
  • MPEG-4 enables different developers to create objects possessing better abilities of adaptability and flexibility to improve the quality of such services and technologies as digital television, animation graphics, World Wide Web and their extensions. This standard enables developers to control their content better and to fight more effectively against copyright violations.
  • Various network providers can use MPEG-4 for data transparency. With the help of standard procedures such data can be interpreted and transformed into various signals compatible with any available network.
  • The MPEG-4 format provides the end users with a wide range of interaction with various animated objects.
  • Standardized Digital Rights Management signaling, otherwise known in the MPEG community as Intellectual Property Management and Protection (IPMP).
The MPEG-4 format can perform various functions, among which might be the following:
  • Multiplexes and synchronizes data, associated with media objects, in such a way that they could be transported further via network channels.
  • Interaction with the audio-visual scene, which is formed on the side of the receiver.

MPEG-4 parts

MPEG-4 consists of several standards—termed "parts"—including the following:
  • Part 1 (ISO/IEC 14496-1): Systems: Describes synchronization and multiplexing of video and audio. For example Transport stream.
  • Part 2 (ISO/IEC 14496-2): Visual: A compression codec for visual data (video, still textures, synthetic images, etc.). One of the many "profiles" in Part 2 is the Advanced Simple Profile (ASP).
  • Part 3 (ISO/IEC 14496-3): Audio: A set of compression codecs for perceptual coding of audio signals, including some variations of Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) as well as other audio/speech coding tools.
  • Part 4 (ISO/IEC 14496-4): Conformance: Describes procedures for testing conformance to other parts of the standard.
  • Part 5 (ISO/IEC 14496-5): Reference Software: Provides software for demonstrating and clarifying the other parts of the standard.
  • Part 6 (ISO/IEC 14496-6): Delivery Multimedia Integration Framework (DMIF).
  • Part 7 (ISO/IEC 14496-7): Optimized Reference Software: Provides examples of how to make improved implementations (e.g., in relation to Part 5).
  • Part 8 (ISO/IEC 14496-8): Carriage on IP networks: Specifies a method to carry MPEG-4 content on IP networks.
  • Part 9 (ISO/IEC 14496-9): Reference Hardware: Provides hardware designs for demonstrating how to implement the other parts of the standard.
  • Part 10 (ISO/IEC 14496-10): Advanced Video Coding (AVC): A codec for video signals which is technically identical to the ITU-T H.264 standard.
  • Part 11 (ISO/IEC 14496-11): Scene description and Application engine, also called BIFS; can be used for rich, interactive content with multiple profiles, including 2D and 3D versions.
  • Part 12 (ISO/IEC 14496-12): ISO Base Media File Format: A file format for storing media content.
  • Part 13 (ISO/IEC 14496-13): Intellectual Property Management and Protection (IPMP) Extensions.
  • Part 14 (ISO/IEC 14496-14): MPEG-4 File Format: The designated container file format for MPEG-4 content, which is based on Part 12.
  • Part 15 (ISO/IEC 14496-15): AVC File Format: For storage of Part 10 video based on Part 12.
  • Part 16 (ISO/IEC 14496-16): Animation Framework eXtension (AFX).
  • Part 17 (ISO/IEC 14496-17): Timed Text subtitle format.
  • Part 18 (ISO/IEC 14496-18): Font Compression and Streaming (for OpenType fonts).
  • Part 19 (ISO/IEC 14496-19): Synthesized Texture Stream.
  • Part 20 (ISO/IEC 14496-20): Lightweight Scene Representation (LASeR).
  • Part 21 (ISO/IEC 14496-21): MPEG-J Graphical Framework eXtension (GFX) (not yet finished - at "FCD" stage in July 2005, FDIS January 2006).
  • Part 22 (ISO/IEC 14496-22): Open Font Format Specification (OFFS) based on OpenType (not yet finished - reached "CD" stage in July 2005)
  • Part 23 (ISO/IEC 14496-23): Symbolic Music Representation (SMR) (not yet finished - reached "FCD" stage in October 2006)
Profiles are also defined within the individual "parts", so an implementation of a part is ordinarily not an implementation of an entire part.

MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-7 and MPEG-21 are other suites of MPEG standards.

Licensing

MPEG-4 is patented proprietary technology. This means that, although the software to create and play back MPEG-4 content may be readily available, a license is needed to use it legally in countries that acknowledge software patents. Patents covering MPEG-4 are claimed by over two dozen companies. The MPEG Licensing Authority[1] licenses patents required for MPEG-4 Part 2 Visual from a wide range of companies (audio is licensed separately) and lists all of its licencors and licencees on the site. New licences for MPEG-4 System patents are under development[2] and no new licences are being offered while holders of its old MPEG-4 Systems licence are still covered under the terms of that licence for the patents listed (MPEG LA – Patent List).

AT&T is trying to sue companies such as Apple Inc. over alleged MPEG-4 patent infringement.[3] The terms of Apple's Quicktime 7 licence for users describes in paragraph 14 the terms under Apple's existing MPEG-4 System Patent Portfolio licence from MPEGLA.

See also

References

External links

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MPEG
MPEG-1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 7 • 21
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Multimedia compression formats
Video compression formats
ISO/IEC
MJPEG MPEG-1 MPEG-2 MPEG-4 ASP MPEG-4/AVC 		ITU-T
H.261 H.262 H.263 H.264 		Others
AVS Bink Dirac Indeo MJPEG RealVideo Theora VC-1 VP6 VP7 WMV
Audio compression formats
ISO/IEC
MPEG-1 Layer III (MP3) MPEG-1 Layer II MPEG-1 Layer I AAC HE-AAC HE-AAC v2 aacPlus v2 		ITU-T
G.711 G.722 G.722.1 G.722.2 G.723 G.723.1 G.726 G.728 G.729 G.729.1 G.729a 		Others
AC3 Apple Lossless ATRAC FLAC iLBC Monkey's Audio μ-law Musepack Nellymoser OptimFROG RealAudio SHN Speex Vorbis WavPack WMA TAK
Image compression formats
ISO/IEC/ITU-T
JPEG JPEG 2000 lossless JPEG JBIG JBIG2 PNG WBMP 		Others
BMP GIF ILBM PCX PGF TGA TIFF HD Photo
Media container formats
General
3GP ASF AVI DMF DPX FLV Matroska MP4 MXF NUT Ogg Ogg Media QuickTime RealMedia VOB 		Audio only
AIFF AU WAV
See for methods and for codecs
Video compression refers to reducing the quantity of data used to represent video images, and this is almost always coupled with the goal of retaining as much of the original's quality as possible.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1960s  1970s  1980s  - 1990s -  2000s  2010s  2020s
1995 1996 1997 - 1998 - 1999 2000 2001

Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII
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name (etymology: from OE nama; akin to OHG namo, Latin nomen, nominis, and Greek όνομα, ultimately from PIE: *nomn- [1]
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Sound is a disturbance of mechanical energy that propagates through matter as a wave (through fluids as a compression wave, and through solids as both compression and shear waves).
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Video (Latin for "I see", first person singular present, indicative of videre, "to see") is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.
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The term coding has the following meanings:
  • In communications systems, the altering of the characteristics of a signal to make the signal more suitable for an intended application, such as optimizing the signal for transmission, improving transmission quality and fidelity,

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standardization or standardisation can have several meanings depending on its context. Common use of the word standard implies that it is a universally agreed-upon set of guidelines for interoperability.
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International Organization for Standardization (Organisation internationale de normalisation), widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations.
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The International Electrotechnical Commission[1] (IEC) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known
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Moving Picture Experts Group, commonly referred to as simply MPEG, is a working group of ISO/IEC charged with the development of video and audio encoding standards. Its first meeting was in May of 1988 in Ottawa, Canada.
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This article relies largely or entirely upon a .
Please help [ improve this article] by introducing appropriate of additional sources. ()
This article has been tagged since October 2007.
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Compact Disc

The closely spaced tracks on the readable surface of a Compact Disc cause light to diffract into a full visible colour spectrum
Media type: Optical disc
Encoding: Various
Capacity: Typically up to 700 MB
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Distribution is one of the 4 aspects of marketing. A distributor is the middleman between the manufacturer and retailer. After a product is manufactured it is typically shipped (and usually sold) to a distributor.
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A videophone is a telephone which is capable of both audio and video duplex transmission. It differs from videoconferencing in that it expects to serve individuals, not groups.
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Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and/or video signals which transmit programs to an audience. The audience may be the general public or a relatively large sub-audience, such as children or young adults.
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Television (often abbreviated to TV, T.V., or more recently, tv; sometimes called telly, the tube, boob tube, or idiot box in British English) is a widely used telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures
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MPEG-1 defines a group of Audio and Video (AV) coding and compression standards agreed upon by MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group). MPEG-1 video is used by the Video CD (VCD) format and less commonly by the DVD-Video format.
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MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information".[1] It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio compression (audio data compression) methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using
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VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language, pronounced vermal or by its initials, originally known as the Virtual Reality Markup Language) is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional (3D) interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World
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In the programming paradigm of object-oriented programming, an object is the individual run-time unit that is used as the basic building block of programs. These objects act on each other, as opposed to a traditional view in which a program may be seen as a collection of functions,
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Digital rights management (DRM) is an umbrella term that refers to access control technologies used by publishers and other copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices.
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Advanced Audio Coding

File extension: .m4a, .m4b, .m4p, .m4v, .aac, .3gp, .mp4
Type of format: Lossy compression
Container for: Audio

Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for
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MPEG-4 Part 2 is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standard (ISO/IEC 14496-2). It is a Discrete Cosine Transform compression standard, similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2.
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codec, see Codec (disambiguation).


A codec is a device or program capable of performing encoding and decoding on a digital data stream or signal. The word codec may be a combination of any of the following: 'Compressor-Dec
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DivX are a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. (formerly DivXNetworks, Inc.), including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.
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Xvid (formerly "XviD") is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard. Xvid features MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi masking, trellis quantization, and H.
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Nero Digital is a brand name applied to a suite of MPEG-4-compatible video and audio compression codecs developed by Nero AG of Germany and Ateme of France. The audio codecs are integrated into the Nero Digital Audio+
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3ivx is a video codec created by 3ivx Technologies, based in Sydney, Australia.

3ivx (pronounced "Thriv-ex") is a codec suite that allows the creation of MPEG-4 compliant data streams.
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Maintainer: Apple Inc.

OS: Mac OS X, Windows XP and Vista

Use: Multimedia framework
License: Proprietary
Website: www.apple.com/quicktime/ QuickTime is a multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc.
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H.264 is a standard for video compression. It is also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, or AVC (for Advanced Video Coding). It was written by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) together with the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) as
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