MPEG Standards
|MPEG-1
MPEG-1 is the result of the MPEG committee’s goal of specifying a syntax of a new compressed digital video for compact discs with a quality similar to VHS tape. The bit rate for MPEG-1 is about 1.2 Mbps.
MPEG-2
The broadcast industry was not satisfied with the compact disc bandwidth and picture quality of MPEG-1 so the committee began developing the MPEG-2 standard, specially designed for broadcast applications. MPEG-2 is intended as a compatible extension of MPEG-1 to serve a wide range of applications at various bit rates (2-20 Mbps) and resolutions. [5] The MPEG-2 standard defines two system streams: the Program Stream (PS) and the Transport Stream (TS). The Program Stream is similar to the MPEG-1 and is designed for relatively error-free environments. More detail about the Program Stream can be found in “MPEG-2 Streams“. For more error-prone environments, such as broadcast applications, the committee defined the Transport Stream, which is described in more detail in “Transport Stream (TS)“.
MPEG-4
MPEG-4 is intended for use with very low bit rate connections. Applications considered are: interactive mobile multimedia communications, video phone, multimedia electronic mail etc. [4]