Tuesday, August 13, 2013

MPEG-4

By Neil Lynch

              MPEG-4 is a convergence of MPEG-1, MPEG-2, etc. It incorporates a wide range of new technologies for video compression … such as custom semiconductors and increase processing-power advancements. MPEG-4 has its biggest advantage on video compression in general and IP video transport in particular; … both developments require significantly more calculations to be made in both the encoder and the decoder. Together, these innovations have allowed a 50-percent reduction in bandwidth for equivalent video quality as compared to MPEG-2 and have enabled new applications such as HD video delivery over the Internet and by-way-of Blu-ray and IPTV networks. MPEG-4 achieves many of its advances in compression efficiency through the introduction of new video objects[1][1] (Simpson); in MPEG-4 each element of a broadcast could be generated separately and then transmitted as separate data units inside the MPEG-4 stream, the decoder ... would process each of the different signals elements and then combine them to form a video signal that is sent to the viewer's display. In MPEG-2, all of the separate elements would be combined together at the broadcaster's facility and then compressed and transmitted to the viewer.  Synthetic-image technology in MPEG-4 reduces bandwidth and gives users control over items being displayed. MPEG-2 is an older compression-version and do not have these innovations; it is less bandwidth efficient when sending natural signals (brightness and color data) of thousand of pixels.




[1][1]New video objects … created by the encoder from the natural sources, such as video cameras and audio microphones, that capture input from the natural world, or they can be created as completely new objects created from synthetic sources that are generated through computer graphics or other means; much less bandwidth is consumed when synthetic signal are sent as compared to natural signals … due primarily to the innate complexity of natural signals and the need to reproduce accurately the pixels that make up a natural image(Simpson).
Simpson, Wes. Video Over IP. Burlington: Elsevier, 2008. Print.
 


No comments:

Post a Comment