Video Compression - mpeg-4, mpeg video and convertersKeywords - mpeg-4,mpeg video,mpeg 4 converter,mpeg converter,mpeg avi |
MPEG-2:
Transport, video and audio standards for broadcast-quality television. Used for over-the-air digital television ATSC, DVB and ISDB, digital satellite TV services like Dish Network, digital cable television signals, SVCD, and with slight modifications, as the .VOB (Video OBject) files that carry the images on DVDs.
MPEG-3:
Originally designed for HDTV, but abandoned when it was realized that MPEG-2 (with extensions) was sufficient for HDTV. (not to be confused with MP3, which is MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3.)
MPEG-4:
Expands MPEG-1 to support video/audio "objects", 3D content, low bitrate encoding and support for Digital Rights Management. Several new higher efficiency video standards (newer than MPEG-2 Video) are included (an alternative to MPEG-2 Video), notably:- MPEG-4 Part 2 (or Advanced Simple Profile) and
- MPEG-4 Part 10 (or Advanced Video Coding or H.264). MPEG-4 Part 10 may be used on HD DVD and Blu-ray discs, along with VC-1 and MPEG-2.
- MPEG-7: A multimedia content description standard.
- MPEG-21: MPEG describes this standard as a multimedia framework.
- MPEG-A: Multimedia application format.
- MPEG-B: MPEG systems technologies.
- MPEG-C: MPEG video technologies.
- MPEG-D: MPEG audio technologies.
- MPEG-E: Multimedia Middleware.
Proprietary Compression Solutions
Despite the open standards of MPEG most people use one of the big three proprietary formats. These are RealMedia, Quicktime and Windows Media. All three have specific advantages which have allowed them to gain ground in the market - mainly because they are free, and support the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP).
RealMedia |
A very popular player which is very widely distributed and available for all major OS platforms. RealPlayer codecs (developed with Intel), coupled with their SureStream technology, will probably keep them in a dominant position. RealSystem supports over 40 media formats. Surestream is an automatic multi bit-rate technology that will adjust the streamed data rate to suit the client's connectivity. In practical terms this means that a single encoding will suit all users from dial-up to corporate LAN. Also supported is Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) which allows mixed multimedia content to be delivered in a synchronized way. RealServer is also available for most OS platforms. Streaming is RealNetwork's core business so they cannot subsidies the technology in favor of market share as Apple and Microsoft do. Serving more than a couple of hundred simultaneous streams can become quite expensive and one major drawback of the system.
Quicktime |
Originally developed in 1991 Apple claims more than 100 million copies distributed world-wide. Quicktime's major advantages are its maturity and the large number of codecs available for it. It features an open plug-in feature to allow third party codecs to be added. MPEG1 and MPEG4 codecs are currently available.The plug-in feature has allowed over 200 digital media formats to be supported by Quicktime. As with RealPlayer, SMIL is available and RTSP is also supported. (Prior to version 4 only progressive streaming, not true real time streaming was available in Quicktime). Quicktime server is supported natively in MAC OS. The open source Darwin Streaming Server is available for other platforms and is free.
Windows Media Player |
Windows Media Player is the newcomer to the streaming world. Because of this, there have been fewer codecs available for it but because of their OS dominance, this is quickly changing. There is an MPEG4 codec and Microsoft's proprietary but very good ASF codec. Microsoft have put some work into their RTSP implementation and it is considered more efficient than others. SMIL is also supported. Microsoft gives the player away free in their operating systems and the company's marketing might means that the format is quickly gaining popularity. There are currently more than 250 million players in 26 languages in existence however, the European market is more difficult for Microsoft. Because of law suits in Europe, Microsoft has agreed to market their operating systems without Media Player. Microsoft's streaming server (called Microsoft Media Services) is otherwise free and supplied as standard for Windows XP server. Microsoft have not open sourced the code which means that other platforms are not supported. This is considered a major disadvantage as far as flexibility is concerned.
Convertion |
If you have a video in one standard but a favorite player that doesn't support that standard, converting from one standard to another requires a converter.
There are hundreds to choose from but the differences between them is minimal. After testing many, many converters, the essential feature this author has chosen is price. I find so little difference in quality, ease-of-use, conversion speed and alike, that my only recommendation is to get a converter from a good company that covers everything - not just one standard to one other.
My most recent find in AVS Systems. They have recently gone to the European business model of offering all their utilities, everything they make (and everything they will make) for a single one-time "subscription" fee. I can't say their converters have the control of say Avid but for video that will never see the inside of NBC, AVS makes an easy-to-use converter that works well. For the price of most convert-only utilities, you also get an editor, capture wizard, authoring tool and a load of audio and system utilities for the rest of your life. And now for the best part, you can try it for free - no Time limits, no feature limits, fully functional. Judge for yourself.
