Recently MPEG4 AVC became the standard for a true high definition and is widely used by digital TV services as a standard definition. In contrast to the MPEG2 compression system, it offers double efficiency. Therefore the European Commission accepted the suggestion that all digital TV receivers should support MPEG4 to the year of 2012. The purpose is to replace all outdated equipment with appropriate ones for the present standard.

What is MPEG4?

MPEG4 is one of the most recently introduced methods for audio and video compression standardized by the so called MPEG group. It has been specially designed for low-bandwidth audio and video encoding. Two of the most common and standard-compliant MPEG4 encoders are the Xvid and DivX. The MPEG4 standard, unlike its predecessors MPEG1 and MPEG2 is a group of several audio and video methods for encoding which have the same characteristics, while the old ones represent one unified encoding mechanism. In the MPEG4 scheme for compression, these methods are designated as profiles and have to be compatible to the older versions of the MPEG standard in order to perform a playback on older platforms. The two most important and used profiles are h.264 or AVC and h263+ or usually referred to as 3GP.

Overview

MPEG4 contributes to the development of software and hardware products due to the better quality it offers. Thus these products have better flexibility and adaptability to improve technologies and services like digital television, the World Wide Web or animation graphics. Users can interact widely with numerous animated objects due to the MPEG4 format. It can perform many various functions and probably the most common on is the multiplexing and synchronizing of data which is associated with media objects in a way that allows the efficient transportation further on he network channels.

MPEG4 has been originally designed to be used for video streaming in small-screen media such as computers, therefore it provides greater bandwidth and encodes more efficiently in comparison to the MPEG2. The MPEG2 format is still the official standard used for digital TV compression, but it offers better productivity in analyzing static images, rather than dynamic ones. Vice versa, the MPEG4 is more efficient in processing a dynamic picture via the use of time and space compression. Therefore, digital TV providers using the MPEG4 compression, provide high definition and quality fast moving objects that continuously and constantly change their place and direction of movement on the screen.

In order to be in touch with the latest news and technologies it is advisable to obtain a MPEG4 compatible TV or MPEG4 receiver, in case you do not have one. When buying a TV set remember to ask and check whether the chosen TV is MPEG4 compatible, because there are many on the market still using the obsolete MPEG2 standard.

To learn even more about MPEG4 TV (or as the Danes say om mpeg4 tv), visit this interesting and very useful Danish website. To read about the use of HDTV antennas, click here.