The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of

working group A working group, or working party, is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. The groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdis ...

s established jointly by

ISO ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Iso ...

and IEC that sets standards for media coding, including compression coding of

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound * Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum * Digital audio, representation of sou ...

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...

, graphics, and genomic data; and transmission and

file formats A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free. Some file formats ...

for various applications.John Watkinson, ''The MPEG Handbook'', p. 1 Together with JPEG, MPEG is organized under ISO/IEC JTC 1/ SC 29 – ''Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information'' (ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1, Subcommittee 29). MPEG formats are used in various multimedia systems. The most well known older MPEG media formats typically use

MPEG-1 MPEG-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 about 1.5 Mbit/s (26:1 and 6:1 compression ratios respectively) without excessive quality loss, making ...

, MPEG-2, and

MPEG-4 AVC Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distr ...

media coding and MPEG-2 systems transport streams and program streams. Newer systems typically use the MPEG base media file format and dynamic streaming (a.k.a.

MPEG-DASH Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), also known as MPEG-DASH, is an adaptive bitrate streaming technique that enables high quality streaming of media content over the Internet delivered from conventional HTTP web servers. Similar to Apple' ...

History

MPEG was established in 1988 by the initiative of Dr. Hiroshi Yasuda ( NTT) and Dr.

Leonardo Chiariglione Leonardo Chiariglione () (born 30 January 1943 (age ) in Almese, Turin province, Piedmont, Italy) is an Italian engineer who has led the development of international technical standards for digital media. In particular, he was the chairman of t ...

(

CSELT Centro Studi e Laboratori Telecomunicazioni (CSELT) was an Italian research center for telecommunication based in Torino, the biggest in Italy and one of the most important in Europe. It played a major role internationally especially in the stand ...

). Chiariglione was the group's chair (called Convenor in ISO/IEC terminology) from its inception until June 6, 2020. The first MPEG meeting was in May 1988 in

Ottawa, Canada Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

. Starting around the time of the MPEG-4 project in the late 1990s and continuing to the present, MPEG had grown to include approximately 300–500 members per meeting from various industries, universities, and research institutions. On June 6, 2020, the MPEG section of Chiariglione's personal website was updated to inform readers that he had retired as Convenor, and he said that the MPEG group (then SC 29/WG 11) "was closed". Chiariglione described his reasons for stepping down in his personal blog. His decision followed a restructuring process within SC 29, in which "some of the subgroups of WG 11 (MPEG) ecamedistinct MPEG working groups (WGs) and advisory groups (AGs)" in July 2020. Prof. Jörn Ostermann of

University of Hannover Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University Hannover (german: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität), also known as the University of Hannover, is a public research university located in Hanover, Germany. Founded on 2 May 1831 as Higher Vocational Sc ...

was appointed as Acting Convenor of SC 29/WG 11 during the restructuring period and was then appointed Convenor of SC 29's Advisory Group 2, which coordinates MPEG overall technical activities. The MPEG structure that replaced the former Working Group 11 includes three Advisory Groups (AGs) and seven Working Groups (WGs) * SC 29/AG 2: MPEG Technical Coordination (Convenor: Prof. Joern Ostermann of

, Germany) * SC 29/AG 3: MPEG Liaison and Communication (Convenor: Prof. Kyuheon Kim of

Kyung Hee University Kyung Hee University (abbreviated to KHU) (Hangul: 경희대학교; Hanja: 慶熙大學校) is a private research university in South Korea with campuses in Seoul and Suwon. Founded in 1949, it is widely regarded as one of the best universities ...

, Korea) * SC 29/AG 5: MPEG Visual Quality Assessment (Convenor: Dr. Mathias Wien of RWTH Aachen University, Germany) * SC 29/WG 2: MPEG Technical Requirements (Convenor: Dr. Igor Curcio of

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

, Finland) * SC 29/WG 3: MPEG Systems (Convenor: Dr. Youngkwon Lim of

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

, Korea) * SC 29/WG 4: MPEG Video Coding (Convenor: Prof. Lu Yu of

Zhejiang University Zhejiang University, abbreviated as ZJU or Zheda and formerly romanized as Chekiang University, is a national public research university based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. It is a member of the prestigious C9 League and is selected into the n ...

, China) * SC 29/WG 5: MPEG Joint Video Coding Team with ITU-T SG16 (Convenor: Prof. Jens-Rainer Ohm of RWTH Aachen University, Germany; formerly co-chairing with Dr. Gary Sullivan of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

, United States) * SC 29/WG 6: MPEG Audio coding (Convenor: Dr. Schuyler Quackenbush of Audio Research Labs, United States) * SC 29/WG 7: MPEG 3D Graphics coding (Convenor: Prof. Marius Preda of

Institut Mines-Télécom Institut Mines-Télécom (IMT) is a French public academic institution dedicated to Higher Education and Research for Innovation in the fields of engineering and digital technology, organized as a Collegiate University. Created in 1996, it was o ...

SudParis) * SC 29/WG 8: MPEG Genomic coding (Convenor: Dr. Marco Mattavelli of EPFL, Switzerland) The first meeting under the current structure was held in October 2020. It (and all other MPEG meetings starting in April 2020) was held virtually by teleconference due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

Cooperation with other groups

MPEG-2

MPEG-2 development included a joint project between MPEG and

ITU-T The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three sectors (divisions or units) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is responsible for coordinating standards for telecommunications and Information Comm ...

Study Group 15 (which later became ITU-T SG16), resulting in publication of the MPEG-2 Systems standard (ISO/IEC 13818-1, including its transport streams and program streams) as ITU-T H.222.0 and the

MPEG-2 Video H.262 or MPEG-2 Part 2 (formally known as ITU-T Recommendation H.262 and ISO/IEC 13818-2, also known as MPEG-2 Video) is a video coding format standardised and jointly maintained by ITU-T Study Group 16 Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and IS ...

standard (ISO/IEC 13818-2) as ITU-T H.262. Sakae Okubo (NTT), was the ITU-T coordinator and chaired the agreements on its requirements.

Joint Video Team

Joint Video Team (JVT) was joint project between ITU-T SG16/Q.6 (Study Group 16 / Question 6) –

VCEG The Video Coding Experts Group or Visual Coding Experts Group (VCEG, also known as Question 6) is a working group of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) concerned with standards for compression coding of video, images, audio ...

(Video Coding Experts Group) and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 – MPEG for the development of a video coding ITU-T Recommendation and ISO/IEC International Standard. It was formed in 2001 and its main result was H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (MPEG-4 Part 10), which reduces the data rate for video coding by about 50%, as compared to the then-current ITU-T H.262 / MPEG-2 standard. The JVT was chaired by Dr. Gary Sullivan, with vice-chairs Dr.

Thomas Wiegand Thomas Wiegand (born 6 May 1970 in Wismar) is a German electrical engineer who substantially contributed to the creation of the H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and H.266/VVC video coding standards. For H.264/AVC, Wiegand was one of the chairmen of th ...

of the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Germany and Dr. Ajay Luthra of

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...

in the United States.

Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding

Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) was a group of video coding experts from ITU-T Study Group 16 (VCEG) and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 (MPEG). It was created in 2010 to develop

High Efficiency Video Coding High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video coding format, video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 ...

(HEVC, MPEG-H Part 2, ITU-T H.265), a video coding standard that further reduces by about 50% the data rate required for video coding, as compared to the then-current ITU-T H.264 / ISO/IEC 14496-10 standard. JCT-VC was co-chaired by Prof. Jens-Rainer Ohm and Gary Sullivan.

Joint Video Experts Team

Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) is a joint group of video coding experts from ITU-T Study Group 16 (VCEG) and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 (MPEG) created in 2017 after an exploration phase that began in 2015. JVET developed

Versatile Video Coding Versatile Video Coding (VVC), also known as H.266, ISO/IEC 23090-3, and MPEG-I Part 3, is a video compression standard finalized on 6 July 2020, by the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET), a joint video expert team of the VCEG working group of IT ...

(VVC, MPEG-I Part 3, ITU-T H.266), completed in July 2020, which further reduces the data rate for video coding by about 50%, as compared to the then-current ITU-T H.265 / HEVC standard, and the JCT-VC was merged into JVET in July 2020. Like JCT-VC, JVET was co-chaired by Jens-Rainer Ohm and Gary Sullivan, until July 2021 when Ohm became the sole chair (after Sullivan became the chair of SC 29).

Standards

The MPEG standards consist of different ''Parts''. Each ''Part'' covers a certain aspect of the whole specification. The standards also specify '' profiles'' and ''levels''. ''Profiles'' are intended to define a set of tools that are available, and ''Levels'' define the range of appropriate values for the properties associated with them. Some of the approved MPEG standards were revised by later amendments and/or new editions. The primary early MPEG compression formats and related standards include: *

(1993): ''Coding of moving pictures and associated audio for digital storage media at up to about 1.5 Mbit/s'' (ISO/IEC 11172). This initial version is known as a lossy fileformat and is the first MPEG compression standard for

and

. It is commonly limited to about 1.5 Mbit/s although the specification is capable of much higher bit rates. It was basically designed to allow moving pictures and sound to be encoded into the

bitrate In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable ''R'') is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. The bit rate is expressed in the unit bit per second (symbol: bit/s), often in conjunction ...

of a

Compact Disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Oc ...

. It is used on

Video CD Video CD (abbreviated as VCD, and also known as Compact Disc Digital Video) is a home video format and the first format for distributing films on standard optical discs. The format was widely adopted in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the ...

and can be used for low-quality video on DVD Video. It was used in digital satellite/cable TV services before MPEG-2 became widespread. To meet the low bit requirement, MPEG-1

downsample In digital signal processing, downsampling, compression, and decimation are terms associated with the process of ''resampling'' in a multi-rate digital signal processing system. Both ''downsampling'' and ''decimation'' can be synonymous with ''com ...

s the images, as well as uses picture rates of only 24–30 Hz, resulting in a moderate quality. It includes the popular MPEG-1 Audio Layer III (

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

) audio compression format. * MPEG-2 (1996): ''Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information'' (ISO/IEC 13818). Transport, video and audio standards for broadcast-quality television. MPEG-2 standard was considerably broader in scope and of wider appeal – supporting interlacing and high definition. MPEG-2 is considered important because it was chosen as the compression scheme for over-the-air

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...

ATSC,

DVB Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) o ...

and ISDB, digital satellite TV services like Dish Network, digital

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

signals,

SVCD Super Video CD (Super Video Compact Disc or SVCD) is a Digital data, digital format for storing video on standard compact discs. SVCD was intended as a successor to Video CD and an alternative to DVD-Video, and falls somewhere between both in ter ...

and

DVD Video DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia in the 2000s until it was supplanted by the high-definition Bl ...

.''The MPEG Handbook'', p. 4 It is also used on Blu-ray Discs, but these normally use MPEG-4 Part 10 or SMPTE

VC-1 SMPTE 421, informally known as VC-1, is a video coding format. Most of it was initially developed as Microsoft's proprietary video format Windows Media Video 9 in 2003. With some enhancements including the development of a new Advanced Profile, ...

for high-definition content. * MPEG-4 (1998): ''Coding of audio-visual objects''. (ISO/IEC 14496) MPEG-4 provides a framework for more advanced compression algorithms potentially resulting in higher compression ratios compared to MPEG-2 at the cost of higher computational requirements. MPEG-4 also supports Intellectual Property Management and Protection (IPMP), which provides the facility to use proprietary technologies to manage and protect content like digital rights management. It also supports MPEG-J, a fully programmatic solution for creation of custom interactive multimedia applications (

Java application Java is a set of computer software and specifications developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems, which was later acquired by the Oracle Corporation, that provides a system for developing application software and deploying it in a cr ...

environment with a

Java API There are two types of Java programming language application programming interfaces (APIs): * The official core Java API, contained in the Android (Google), SE (OpenJDK and Oracle), MicroEJ. These packages (java.* packages) are the core Java la ...

) and many other features. Two new higher-efficiency video coding standards (newer than MPEG-2 Video) are included: **

MPEG-4 Part 2 MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual (formally ISO/ IEC 14496-2) is a video compression format developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standards. It uses block-wise motion compensation and a discrete cosine ...

(including its Simple and Advanced Simple profiles) and **

(MPEG-4 Part 10 or ITU-T H.264, 2003). MPEG-4 AVC may be used on

HD DVD HD DVD (short for High Definition Digital Versatile Disc) is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and playback of high-definition video. Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the ...

and Blu-ray Discs, along with

and MPEG-2. MPEG-4 AVC was chosen as the video compression scheme for over-the-air television broadcasting in Brazil (ISDB-TB), based on the digital television system of Japan (ISDB-T). An MPEG-3 project was cancelled. MPEG-3 was planned to deal with standardizing scalable and multi-resolution compression and was intended for HDTV compression, but was found to be unnecessary and was merged with MPEG-2; as a result there is no MPEG-3 standard. The cancelled MPEG-3 project is not to be confused with

, which is MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III. In addition, the following standards, while not sequential advances to the video encoding standard as with MPEG-1 through MPEG-4, are referred to by similar notation: * MPEG-7 (2002): ''Multimedia content description interface''. (ISO/IEC 15938) *

MPEG-21 The MPEG-21 standard, from the Moving Picture Experts Group, aims at defining an open framework for multimedia applications. MPEG-21 is ratified in the standards ISO/IEC 21000 - Multimedia framework (MPEG-21). MPEG-21 is based on two essential con ...

(2001): ''Multimedia framework (MPEG-21)''. (ISO/IEC 21000) MPEG describes this standard as a ''

multimedia framework A multimedia framework is a software framework that handles media on a computer and through a network. A good multimedia framework offers an intuitive API and a modular architecture to easily add support for new audio, video and container formats ...

'' and provides for intellectual property management and protection. Moreover, more recently than other standards above, MPEG has produced the following international standards; each of the standards holds multiple MPEG technologies for a variety of applications. (For example, MPEG-A includes a number of technologies on multimedia application format.) *

MPEG-A MPEG-A is a group of standards for composing MPEG systems formally known as ''ISO ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a ...

(2007): ''Multimedia application format (MPEG-A)''. (ISO/IEC 23000) (e.g., an explanation of the purpose for multimedia application formats, MPEG music player application format, MPEG photo player application format and others) * MPEG-B (2006): ''MPEG systems technologies''. (ISO/IEC 23001) (e.g., Binary MPEG format for XML, Fragment Request Units (FRUs), Bitstream Syntax Description Language (BSDL) and others) * MPEG-C (2006): ''MPEG video technologies''. (ISO/IEC 23002) (e.g., accuracy requirements for implementation of integer-output 8x8 inverse discrete cosine transform and others) *

MPEG-D MPEG-D is a group of standards for audio coding formally known as '' ISO/IEC 23003'' - ''MPEG audio technologies'', published since 2007. MPEG-D consists of four parts: * MPEG-D Part 1: MPEG Surround MPEG Surround (ISO/ IEC 23003-1 or MPEG-D P ...

(2007): ''MPEG audio technologies''. (ISO/IEC 23003) (e.g., MPEG Surround, SAOC-Spatial Audio Object Coding and USAC- Unified Speech and Audio Coding) * MPEG-E (2007): ''Multimedia Middleware''. (ISO/IEC 23004) (a.k.a. M3W) (e.g., architecture, multimedia application programming interface (API), component model and others) * MPEG-G (2019) ''Genomic Information Representation'' (ISO/IEC 23092), Parts 1–6 for transport and storage, coding, metadata and APIs, reference software, conformance, and annotations *''Supplemental media technologies'' (2008, later replaced and withdrawn). (ISO/IEC 29116) It had one published part, media streaming application format protocols, which was later replaced and revised in MPEG-M Part 4's MPEG extensible middleware (MPEG-M) protocols. * MPEG-V (2011): ''Media context and control''. (ISO/IEC 23005) (a.k.a. Information exchange with Virtual Worlds) (e.g., Avatar characteristics, Sensor information, Architecture and others) * MPEG-M (2010): ''MPEG eXtensible Middleware (MXM)''. (ISO/IEC 23006) (e.g., MXM architecture and technologies, API, and MPEG extensible middleware (MXM) protocols) * MPEG-U (2010): '' Rich media user interfaces''. (ISO/IEC 23007) (e.g., Widgets) *

MPEG-H MPEG-H is a group of international standards under development by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It has various "parts" – each of which can be considered a separate standard. These include a media transport protocol standard, ...

(2013): ''High Efficiency Coding and Media Delivery in Heterogeneous Environments''. (ISO/IEC 23008) Part 1 –

MPEG media transport MPEG media transport (MMT), specified as ISO/IEC 23008-1 (MPEG-H Part 1), is a digital container standard developed by Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) that supports High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) video. MMT was designed to transfer dat ...

; Part 2 –

(HEVC, ITU-T H.265); Part 3 – 3D Audio. *

(2012): ''Information technology – Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH)''. (ISO/IEC 23009) Part 1 – Media presentation description and segment formats * MPEG-I (2020): ''Coded Representation of Immersive Media'' (ISO/IEC 23090), including Part 2 Omnidirectional Media Format (OMAF) and Part 3 –

(VVC, ITU-T H.266) * MPEG-CICP (ISO/IEC 23091) ''Coding-Independent Code Points'' (CICP), Parts 1–4 for systems, video, audio, and usage of video code points

Standardization process

A standard published by ISO/IEC is the last stage of an approval process that starts with the proposal of new work within a committee. Stages of the standard development process include: * NP or NWIP – New Project or New Work Item Proposal * AWI – Approved Work Item * WD – Working Draft * CD or CDAM – Committee Draft or Committee Draft Amendment * DIS or DAM – Draft International Standard or Draft Amendment * FDIS or FDAM – Final Draft International Standard or Final Draft Amendment * IS or AMD – International Standard or Amendment Other abbreviations: * DTR – Draft Technical Report (for information) * TR – Technical Report * DCOR – Draft Technical Corrigendum (for corrections) * COR – Technical Corrigendum A proposal of work (New Proposal) is approved at the Subcommittee level and then at the Technical Committee level (SC 29 and JTC 1, respectively, in the case of MPEG). When the scope of new work is sufficiently clarified, MPEG usually makes open "calls for proposals". The first document that is produced for audio and video coding standards is typically called a test model. When a sufficient confidence in the stability of the standard under development is reached, a Working Draft (WD) is produced. When a WD is sufficiently solid (typically after producing several numbered WDs), the next draft is issued as a Committee Draft (CD) (usually at the planned time) and is sent to National Bodies (NBs) for comment. When a consensus is reached to proceed to the next stage, the draft becomes a Draft International Standard (DIS) and is sent for another ballot. After a review and comments issued by NBs and a resolution of comments in the working group, a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) is typically issued for a final approval ballot. The final approval ballot is voted on by National Bodies, with no technical changes allowed (a yes/no approval ballot). If approved, the document becomes an International Standard (IS). In cases where the text is considered sufficiently mature, the WD, CD, and/or FDIS stages can be skipped. The development of a standard is completed when the FDIS document has been issued, with the FDIS stage only being for final approval, and in practice, the FDIS stage for MPEG standards has always resulted in approval.

Notes

External links

*
Papers and books on MPEG
{{Authority control Computer file formats Film and video technology MPEG Organizations established in 1988 Working groups