MPEG format: specifications and capabilities
Today, every video lover has the opportunity to create their own personal computer-based home video studio ….
It is known that when working with video files, it becomes necessary to process and store very large amounts of information, for example, one minute of digital video signal with SIF resolution (comparable to VHS) and true color (millions of colors) will take ( 288 x 358) pixels x 24 bits x 25 frames / sec x 60 sec = 442 MB, that is, on media used in modern PCs, such as a CD (CD-ROM, approximately 650 MB) or a hard disk (several dozen gigabytes), an error will occur when saving a full-time video recorded in this format. By using MPEG compression, the amount of video information can be significantly reduced without noticeable image degradation. How MPEG works and what other applications it has will be discussed further.
MPEG
MPEG is an abbreviation for Moving Picture Expert Group, the name of a group of ISO experts working to develop standards for encoding and compressing audio and video data. The official name of the group is ISO / IEC JTC1 SC29 WG11. The abbreviation MPEG is often used to refer to the standards developed by this group. To date, the following are known:
MPEG-1 is designed to record synchronized video (usually in SIF format, 288 x 358) and audio on CD-ROM with a maximum read speed of approximately 1.5 Mbps. The quality parameters of the processed video data by MPEG-1 are in many ways similar to ordinary VHS video, so this format is mainly used when it is inconvenient or impractical to use standard analog video media.
MPEG-2 is designed to process television-quality video images with a data transmission system capacity ranging from 3 to 15 Mbit / s, and professional equipment uses transmission speeds of up to 50 Mbit / s. Many television channels are switching to technologies based on MPEG-2, the signal compressed according to this standard is transmitted through television satellites and is used to archive large volumes of video material.
MPEG-3 – Designed for use in High Definition Television (HDTV) systems with a data rate of 20 to 40 Mbps, but later became part of the MPEG-2 standard and is no longer mentioned separately. By the way, the MP3 format, which is sometimes confused with MPEG-3, is designed only to compress audio information and the full name of MP3 sounds like MPEG-Audio Layer-3.
MPEG-4: defines the principles for working with the digital representation of multimedia data in three areas: interactive multimedia (including products distributed on optical discs and on the Web), graphic applications (synthetic content) and digital television.
