MPEG-4 is a patented collection of methods defining
compressionVideo compression refers to reducing the quantity of data used to represent digital video images, and is a combination of spatial image compression and temporal motion compensation. Video compression is an example of the concept of source coding in Information theory...
of audio and visual (AV) digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a
standardStandardization or standardisation is the process of developing and agreeing upon technical standards. A standard is a document that establishes uniform engineering or technical specifications, criteria, methods, processes, or practices. Some standards are mandatory while others are voluntary. ...
for a group of
audioSound is a travelling wave which is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.- Perception of sound...
and
videoVideo is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.-History:...
codingCoding may refer to:* Coding theory* Computer programming* The process of Statistical classification of information*coding *legal coding* A coding strand of DNA is translated into a protein product...
formats and related technology agreed upon by the
ISOThe International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO , is an international-standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on 23 February 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary industrial and commercial...
/
IECThe International Electrotechnical Commission 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 as "electrotechnology"...
Moving Picture Experts GroupThe Moving Picture Experts Group was formed by the ISO to set standards for audio and video compression and transmission. Its first meeting was in May 1988 in Ottawa, Canada. As of late 2005, MPEG has grown to include approximately 350 members per meeting from various industries, universities,...
(MPEG) under the formal standard ISO/IEC 14496. Uses of MPEG-4 include compression of AV data for web (
streaming mediaStreaming media are multimedia that are constantly received by, and normally presented to, an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider . The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than to the medium itself...
) and
CDA Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store sound recordings exclusively, but later it also allowed the preservation of other types of data. Audio CDs have been commercially available since October 1982...
distribution, voice (
telephoneThe telephone is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sound, most commonly the human voice. It is one of the most common household appliances in the developed world, and has long been considered indispensable to business, industry and government...
,
videophone A videophone is a telephone with a video screen, and is capable of full duplex video and audio transmissions for communication between people in real-time....
) and
broadcastBroadcasting 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....
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
applications.
MPEG-4 absorbs many of the features of
MPEG-1MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making Video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
and
MPEG-2MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
and other related standards, adding new features such as (extended)
VRMLVRML is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind...
support for 3D rendering,
objectIn computer science, an object, in the domain of object-oriented programming, usually means a compilation of attributes and behaviors encapsulating an entity....
-oriented composite files (including audio, video and VRML objects), support for externally-specified
Digital Rights ManagementDigital rights management is a generic term for access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to try to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices...
and various types of interactivity.
MPEG-4 is a patented collection of methods defining
compressionVideo compression refers to reducing the quantity of data used to represent digital video images, and is a combination of spatial image compression and temporal motion compensation. Video compression is an example of the concept of source coding in Information theory...
of audio and visual (AV) digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a
standardStandardization or standardisation is the process of developing and agreeing upon technical standards. A standard is a document that establishes uniform engineering or technical specifications, criteria, methods, processes, or practices. Some standards are mandatory while others are voluntary. ...
for a group of
audioSound is a travelling wave which is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.- Perception of sound...
and
videoVideo is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.-History:...
codingCoding may refer to:* Coding theory* Computer programming* The process of Statistical classification of information*coding *legal coding* A coding strand of DNA is translated into a protein product...
formats and related technology agreed upon by the
ISOThe International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO , is an international-standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on 23 February 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary industrial and commercial...
/
IECThe International Electrotechnical Commission 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 as "electrotechnology"...
Moving Picture Experts GroupThe Moving Picture Experts Group was formed by the ISO to set standards for audio and video compression and transmission. Its first meeting was in May 1988 in Ottawa, Canada. As of late 2005, MPEG has grown to include approximately 350 members per meeting from various industries, universities,...
(MPEG) under the formal standard ISO/IEC 14496. Uses of MPEG-4 include compression of AV data for web (
streaming mediaStreaming media are multimedia that are constantly received by, and normally presented to, an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider . The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than to the medium itself...
) and
CDA Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store sound recordings exclusively, but later it also allowed the preservation of other types of data. Audio CDs have been commercially available since October 1982...
distribution, voice (
telephoneThe telephone is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sound, most commonly the human voice. It is one of the most common household appliances in the developed world, and has long been considered indispensable to business, industry and government...
,
videophone A videophone is a telephone with a video screen, and is capable of full duplex video and audio transmissions for communication between people in real-time....
) and
broadcastBroadcasting 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....
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
applications.
MPEG-4 absorbs many of the features of
MPEG-1MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making Video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
and
MPEG-2MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
and other related standards, adding new features such as (extended)
VRMLVRML is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind...
support for 3D rendering,
objectIn computer science, an object, in the domain of object-oriented programming, usually means a compilation of attributes and behaviors encapsulating an entity....
-oriented composite files (including audio, video and VRML objects), support for externally-specified
Digital Rights ManagementDigital rights management is a generic term for access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to try to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices...
and various types of interactivity.
AAC (Advanced Audio Codec)Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
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. Companies promoting MPEG-4 compatibility do not always clearly state which "part" level compatibility they are referring to. The key parts to be aware of are
MPEG-4 part 2MPEG-4 Part 2 is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standard . It is a discrete cosine transform compression standard, similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2...
(including Advanced Simple Profile, used by
codecA codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding and/or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of compressor-decompressor' or, more accurately, coder-decoder'.Historically a modem was a contraction of modulator/demodulator and converted...
s such as
DivXDivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, 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.The DivX codec uses lossy MPEG-4 Part 2 compression, where quality is...
,
XvidXvid is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile . It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi masking, trellis quantization, and H.263, MPEG and custom quantization matrices.Xvid is a...
,
Nero DigitalNero 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...
and
3ivx3ivx is a video codec created by 3ivx Technologies, based in Sydney, Australia.3ivx is a codec suite that allows the creation of MPEG-4 compliant data streams. It has been designed around a need for decreased processing power for use mainly in embedded systems. First versions was published in 2001...
and by
QuicktimeQuickTime is a multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, media clips, sound, text, animation, music, and interactive panoramic images. It is available for Mac OS classic , Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems...
6) and
MPEG-4 part 10H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is a standard for video compression. The final drafting work on the first version of the standard was completed in May 2003.H.264/AVC is the latest block-oriented motion-compensation-based codec standard developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group together with the ISO/IEC...
(MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 or Advanced Video Coding, used by the
x264x264 is a free software library for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.- History :...
codec, by
Nero Digital AVCNero 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...
, by Quicktime 7, and by next-gen video medium formats like
Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the standard DVD format. Its main uses are for storing high-definition video, PlayStation 3 games, and other data, with up to 25 GB per single layered, and 50 GB per dual layered disc...
).
Most of the features included in MPEG-4 are left to individual
developersA software developer is a person or organization concerned with facets of the software development process wider than design and coding, a somewhat broader scope of computer programming or a specialty of project managing including some aspects of software product management...
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.
Initially, MPEG-4 was aimed primarily at low bit-rate
videoVideo is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.-History:...
communications; however, its scope as a multimedia coding standard was later expanded. MPEG-4 is efficient across a variety of bit-rates ranging from a few kilobits per second to tens of megabits per second. MPEG-4 provides the following functionalities:
- Improved coding efficiency
- Ability to encode
Encode may refer to:* Can be related to "Code"* Encode ApS, a Danish software company* ENCODE, the ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements...
mixed media data (videoVideo is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.-History:...
, audioAn audio frequency , or audible frequency is characterized as a periodic vibration whose frequency is audible to the average human. While the range of frequencies that any individual can hear is largely related to environmental factors, the generally accepted standard range of audible frequencies...
, speechSpeech is the human faculty of speaking.It may also refer to:* Public speaking, the process of speaking to a group of people* Manner of articulation, how the body parts involved in making speech are manipulated...
)
- Error resilience to enable robust transmission
In telecommunications, transmission is the process of sending, propagating and receiving an analogue or digital information signal over a physical point-to-point or point-to-multipoint transmission medium, either wired or wireless...
- Ability to interact with the audio-visual
The term audio-visual may refer to works with both a sound and a visual component, the production or use of such works, or the equipment involved in presenting such works. Movies and television shows are examples of audio-visual presentations....
scene generated at the receiver
Overview
MPEG-4 provides a series of technologies for developers, for various service-providers and for end users:
- MPEG-4 enables different software and hardware developers to create multimedia objects possessing better abilities of adaptability and flexibility to improve the quality of such services and technologies as digital television, animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways...
graphics, the World Wide Web and their extensions. This standard enables developers to better control their content and to fight more effectively against copyright violations.
- Data network providers can use MPEG-4 for data transparency. With the help of standard procedures, MPEG-4 data can be interpreted and transformed into other signal types compatible with any available network.
- The MPEG-4 format provides end users with a wide range of interaction with various animated objects.
- Standardized Digital Rights Management
Digital rights management is a generic term for access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to try to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices...
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
The multiplexed signal is transmitted over a communication channel, which may be a physical transmission medium. The multiplexing divides the capacity of the low-level communication channel into several higher-level logical channels, one for each message signal or data stream to be transferred...
and synchronizesSynchronization or synchronisation is timekeeping which requires the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. The familiar conductor of an orchestra serves to keep the orchestra in time....
data, associated with media objects, in such a way that they can be efficiently transported further via network channels.
- Interaction with the audio-visual scene, which is formed on the side of the receiver.
Profiles and Levels
MPEG-4 provides a large and rich set of tools for encoding.
Subsets of the MPEG-4 tool sets have been provided for use in specific applications.
These subsets, called 'Profiles', limit the size of the tool set a decoder is required to implement. In order to
restrict computational complexity, one or more 'Levels' are set for each Profile.
A Profile and Level combination allows:
- A codec builder to implement only the subset of the standard he needs, while maintaining interworking with other MPEG-4 devices that implement the same combination.
- Checking whether MPEG-4 devices comply with the standard, referred to as conformance testing
Conformance testing or type testing is testing to determine whether a system meets some specified standard.To aid in this, many test procedures and test setups have been developed, either by the standard's maintainers or external organizations, specifically for testing conformance to...
.
MPEG-4 parts
MPEG-4 consists of several standards—termed "parts"—including the following:
| Part |
Number |
First public release date |
Title |
Description |
| Part 1 |
ISO/IEC 14496-1 |
1999 |
Systems |
Describes synchronization and multiplexing of video and audio. For example Transport stream Transport stream is a communications protocol for audio, video, and data. It is a type of digital container format that encapsulates packetized elementary streams and other data....
and the MPEG-4 file format version 1 (obsoleted by version 2 defined in MPEG-4 Part 14). |
| Part 2 MPEG-4 Part 2 is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standard . It is a discrete cosine transform compression standard, similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2...
|
ISO/IEC 14496-2 |
1999 |
Visual MPEG-4 Part 2 is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standard . It is a discrete cosine transform compression standard, similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2...
|
A compression codec A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding and/or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of compressor-decompressor' or, more accurately, coder-decoder'.Historically a modem was a contraction of modulator/demodulator and converted...
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 MPEG-4 Part 3 or MPEG-4 Audio is the third part of the ISO/IEC MPEG-4 international standard. It specifies audio coding methods...
|
ISO/IEC 14496-3 |
1999 |
Audio MPEG-4 Part 3 or MPEG-4 Audio is the third part of the ISO/IEC MPEG-4 international standard. It specifies audio coding methods...
|
A set of compression codecs for perceptual coding of audio signals, including some variations of Advanced Audio Coding Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
(AAC) as well as other audio/speech coding formats and tools (such as Audio Lossless CodingMPEG-4 Audio Lossless Coding, also known as MPEG-4 ALS, is an extension to the MPEG-4 Part 3 audio standard to allow lossless audio compression. The extension was finalized in December 2005 and published as ISO/IEC 14496-3:2005/Amd 2:2006 in 2006...
(ALS), Scalable Lossless CodingMPEG-4 SLS, or MPEG-4 Scalable to Lossless as per ISO/IEC 14496-3:2005/Amd 3:2006 , is an extension to the MPEG-4 Part 3 standard to allow lossless audio compression scalable to lossy MPEG-4 General Audio coding methods...
(SLS), Structured AudioMPEG-4 Structured Audio is an ISO/IEC standard for describing sound. It was published as subpart 5 of MPEG-4 Part 3 in 1999....
, Text-To-Speech Interface (TTSI), HVXCHarmonic Vector Excitation Coding, abbreviated as HVXC is a speech coding algorithm used in MPEG-4 Part 3 standard for very low bit rate speech coding. HVXC supports bit rates of 2 and 4 kbit/s in the fixed and variable bit rate mode and sampling frequency 8 kHz...
and others) |
| Part 4 |
ISO/IEC 14496-4 |
2000 |
Conformance testing |
Describes procedures for testing conformance to other parts of the standard. |
| Part 5 |
ISO/IEC 14496-5 |
2000 |
Reference software |
Provides reference software In computing, a reference implementation is a software example of a specification. These are intended to help others implement their own version of the specification or find problems during the creation of a specification...
for demonstrating and clarifying the other parts of the standard. |
| Part 6 |
ISO/IEC 14496-6 |
1999 |
Delivery Multimedia Integration Framework DMIF, or Delivery Multimedia Integration Framework, is an interface between the application and the transport, that allows the MPEG-4 application developer to stop worrying about that transport...
(DMIF). |
| Part 7 |
ISO/IEC TR 14496-7 |
2002 |
Optimized reference software for coding of audio-visual objects |
Provides examples of how to make improved implementations (e.g., in relation to Part 5). |
| Part 8 |
ISO/IEC 14496-8 |
2004 |
Carriage of ISO/IEC 14496 contents over IP networks |
Specifies a method to carry MPEG-4 content on IP networks. |
| Part 9 |
ISO/IEC TR 14496-9 |
2004 |
Reference hardware description |
Provides hardware designs for demonstrating how to implement the other parts of the standard. |
| Part 10 H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is a standard for video compression. The final drafting work on the first version of the standard was completed in May 2003.H.264/AVC is the latest block-oriented motion-compensation-based codec standard developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group together with the ISO/IEC...
|
ISO/IEC 14496-10 |
2003 |
Advanced Video Coding (AVC) |
A codec for video signals which is technically identical to the ITU-T The Telecommunication Standardization Sector coordinates standards for telecommunications on behalf of the International Telecommunication Union and is based in Geneva, Switzerland....
H.264 standard. |
| Part 11 |
ISO/IEC 14496-11 |
2005 |
Scene description and application engine ("BIFS") |
Can be used for rich, interactive content with multiple profiles, including 2D and 3D versions. |
| Part 12 |
ISO/IEC 14496-12 |
2004 |
ISO base media file format ISO base media file format defines a general structure for time-based multimedia files such as video and audio. It is used as the basis for other media file formats...
|
A file format for storing time-based media content. It is a general format forming the basis for a number of other more specific file formats (e.g. 3GP 3GP is a multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project for 3G UMTS multimedia services. It is used on 3G mobile phones but can also be played on some 2G and 4G phones....
, Motion JPEG 2000, MPEG-4 Part 14MPEG-4 Part 14, formally ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003, is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital audio and digital video streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and...
). It is technically identical to ISO/IEC 15444-12 (JPEG 2000JPEG 2000 is a wavelet-based image compression standard. It was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group committee in the year 2000 with the intention of superseding their original discrete cosine transform-based JPEG standard...
image coding system - Part 12). |
| Part 13 |
ISO/IEC 14496-13 |
2004 |
Intellectual Property Management and Protection (IPMP) Extensions. |
| Part 14 MPEG-4 Part 14, formally ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003, is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital audio and digital video streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and...
|
ISO/IEC 14496-14 |
2003 |
MP4 file format MPEG-4 Part 14, formally ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003, is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital audio and digital video streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and...
(also known as MPEG-4 file format version 2) |
The designated container file format for MPEG-4 content, which is based on Part 12. It revises and completely replaces Clause 13 of ISO/IEC 14496-1 (MPEG-4 Part 1: Systems), in which the MPEG-4 file format was previously specified. |
| Part 15 |
ISO/IEC 14496-15 |
2004 |
Advanced Video Coding (AVC) file format |
For storage of Part 10 video. File format is based on Part 12, but also allows storage in other file formats. |
| Part 16 |
ISO/IEC 14496-16 |
2004 |
Animation Framework eXtension (AFX). |
| Part 17 MPEG-4 Part 17, or MPEG-4 Timed Text, or MPEG-4 Streaming text format is the text based subtitle format for MPEG-4, published as ISO/IEC 14496-17 in 2006...
|
ISO/IEC 14496-17 |
2006 |
Streaming text format MPEG-4 Part 17, or MPEG-4 Timed Text, or MPEG-4 Streaming text format is the text based subtitle format for MPEG-4, published as ISO/IEC 14496-17 in 2006...
|
Timed Text subtitle format |
| Part 18 |
ISO/IEC 14496-18 |
2004 |
Font compression and streaming |
(for OpenType fonts). |
| Part 19 |
ISO/IEC 14496-19 |
2004 |
Synthesized texture stream |
Synthesized texture streams are used for creation of very low bitrate synthetic video clips. |
Part 20MPEG-4 Part 20, or MPEG-4 Lightweight Application Scene Representation is the new rich mediastandard dedicated to the mobile, embedded and consumer electronics industries specified by the MPEG standardization group....
|
ISO/IEC 14496-20 |
2006 |
Lightweight Application Scene Representation (LASeR) and Simple Aggregation Format (SAF). |
| Part 21 |
ISO/IEC 14496-21 |
2006 |
MPEG-J Graphics Framework eXtensions (GFX) |
(at "FCD" stage in July 2005, FDIS January 2006, published as ISO standard on 2006-11-22). |
| Part 22 |
ISO/IEC 14496-22 |
2007 |
Open Font Format |
(OFFS) based on OpenType (reached "CD" stage in July 2005, published as ISO standard in 2007) |
| Part 23 |
ISO/IEC 14496-23 |
2008 |
Symbolic Music Representation (SMR) |
(reached "FCD" stage in October 2006, published as ISO standard in 2008-01-28) |
| Part 24 |
ISO/IEC TR 14496-24 |
2008 |
Audio and systems interaction |
It describes the desired joint behavior of MPEG-4 File Format and MPEG-4 Audio. |
| Part 25 |
ISO/IEC 14496-25 |
2009 |
3D Graphics Compression Model |
Defines a model for connecting 3D Graphics Compression tools defined in MPEG-4 standards to graphics primitives defined in any other standard or specification. |
| Part 26 |
ISO/IEC 14496-26 |
(under development http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=53750) |
Audio Conformance |
|
| Part 27 |
ISO/IEC 14496-27 |
(under development http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=53751) |
3D Graphics conformance |
|
Profiles are also defined within the individual "parts", so an implementation of a part is ordinarily not an implementation of an entire part.
MPEG-1MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making Video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
,
MPEG-2MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
,
MPEG-7MPEG-7 is a multimedia content description standard. This description will be associated with the content itself, to allow fast and efficient searching for material that is of interest to the user. MPEG-7 is formally called Multimedia Content Description Interface...
and
MPEG-21The MPEG-21 standard, from the Moving Picture Experts Group, aims at defining an open framework for multimedia applications. MPEG-21 is ratified in the standard ISO/IEC 21000....
are other suites of MPEG standards.
Licensing
MPEG-4 contains patented technologies that require licensing in countries that acknowledge
software algorithm patentsSoftware patent does not have a universally accepted definition. One definition suggested by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure is that a software patent is a "patent on any performance of a computer realised by means of a computer program".
[In 2005, the European...]
. Patents covering MPEG-4 are claimed by over two dozen companies. The MPEG Licensing Authority licenses patents required for MPEG-4 Part 2 Visual from a wide range of companies (audio is licensed separately) and lists all of its licensors and licensees on the site. New licenses for MPEG-4 System patents are under development and no new licenses are being offered while holders of its old MPEG-4 Systems license are still covered under the terms of that license 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. The terms of Apple's Quicktime 7 license for users describes in paragraph 14 the terms under Apple's existing MPEG-4 System Patent Portfolio license from MPEGLA.
External links