MPEG

- MPEG stands for Moving Picture Expert Group which worked to generate the specifications
under ISO (the International Organization for Standardization and IE! (the International
Electro technical !o""ission#
- Video as sequence of pictures (frames)
o JPEG applied to each frame
o High correlation between successive frames - onl! small portion of each frame is
involved with an! motion
o " combination of actual frame contents and predicted frame contents are used
o #eed of motion estimation and motion compensation
- $rame%frame t!pes
o &-frames' (&nterframe or &ntraframe) are coded with reference to other frames( )erve
as reference pictures for predictive-coded frames (P* +)
o P-frames' coded using motion compensated prediction form a past &-frame or P-
frame
o +-frames' are bi-directionall! predictive-coded( Highest degree of compression* but
require both past and future reference pictures for motion compensation
- ,PEG encoding
o -ses motion compensation
&dea is that a pattern of pi.els appears in a different position in following
frames
o &nput frames are preprocessed (color space conversion and spatial resolution
ad/ustment)
o $rame t!pes are decided for each frame%picture
o Each picture is divided into macro bloc0s of 12312 pi.els
o ,acro bloc0s are intracoded for &-frames and predictive coded for P and + frames
"ttempt to predict where macrobloc0 in frame n will appear in frame n41
(forward prediction) and frame n-1 (bac0ward prediction)
o ,acro bloc0s are divided into si. bloc0s of 535 pi.els (6 luminance and 7
chrominance) and 89: is applied to each bloc0* then transform coefficients are
quanti;ed and ;ig-;ag scanned* variable-length coded
Picture sequence
& + + P + + & (displa! order)
+itstream order -- & P + + P + + &
:he ,PEG compression methodolog! is considered as asymmetric--where the encoder is more
comple. than the decoder(
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:he encoder needs to be algorithmic or adaptive whereas the decoder is
>dumb> and carries out fi.ed actions(
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:his is considered advantageous in applications such as
broadcasting where the number of e.pensive comple. encoders is small but the number of simple
ine.pensive decoders is large(
:his approach of the &)? to standardi;ation in ,PEG is considered novel because it is not the encoder
which is standardi;ed@ instead* the wa! in which a decoder shall interpret the bitstream is defined( "
decoder which can successfull! interpret the bitstream is said to be compliant(
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:he advantage of
standardi;ing the decoder is that over time encoding algorithms can improve !et compliant decoders
will continue to function with them(
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" video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and%or decompression for digital
video( :he compression usuall! emplo!s loss! data compression( Historicall!* video was stored as an
analog signal on magnetic tape( "round the time when the compact disc entered the mar0et as a digital-
format replacement for analog audio* it became feasible to also begin storing and using video in digital
form* and a variet! of such technologies began to emerge(
"udio and video call for customi;ed methods of compression( Engineers and mathematicians have tried
a number of solutions for tac0ling this problem(
:here is a comple. balance between the video qualit!* the quantit! of the data needed to represent it*
also 0nown as the bit rate* the comple.it! of the encoding and decoding algorithms* robustness to data
losses and errors* ease of editing* random access* the state of the art of compression algorithm design*
end-to-end dela!* and a number of other factors(
8igital video codecs are found in 8V8 (,PEG-7)* V98 (,PEG-1)* in emerging satellite and
terrestrial broadcast s!stems* and on the &nternet( ?nline video material is encoded in a variet! of
codecs* and this has led to the availabilit! of codec pac0s - a pre-assembled set of commonl! used
codecs combined with an installer available as a software pac0age for P9s(
Encoding media b! the public has seen an upsurge with the availabilit! of 8V8-writers( )ince
commerciall! available 8V8s are usuall! dual-la!er* and hence bigger than the more common single
la!er writable 8V8s* it is often the case that the material has to be compressed again* sacrificing
qualit! so that the media will fit onto a single la!er disc(
"n audio codec is a hardware device or a computer program that compresses%decompresses digital
audio data according to a given audio file format or streaming audio format( :he term codec is a
combination of >coder-decoder>( :he ob/ect of a codec algorithm is to represent the high-fidelit! audio
signal with minimum number of bits while retaining the qualit!( :his can effectivel! reduce the storage
space and the bandwidth required for transmission of the stored audio file( ,ost codecs are
implemented as libraries which interface to one or more multimedia pla!ers* such as A,,)* Binamp
or Bindows ,edia Pla!er(
&n some conte.ts* the term Caudio codecC can refer to a hardware implementation or sound card( Bhen
used in this manner* the phrase audio codec refers to the device encoding an analog audio signal(
Audio compression is a form of data compression designed to reduce the si;e of audio files( "udio
compression algorithms are implemented in computer software as audio codecs( Generic data
compression algorithms perform poorl! with audio data* seldom reducing file si;es much below 5DE of
the original* and are not designed for use in real time( 9onsequentl!* specific audio ClosslessC and
Closs!C algorithms have been created( Foss! algorithms provide far greater compression ratios and are
used in mainstream consumer audio devices(
"s with image compression* both loss! and lossless compression algorithms are used in audio
compression* loss! being the most common for ever!da! use( &n both loss! and lossless compression*
information redundanc! is reduced* using methods such as coding* pattern recognition and linear
prediction to reduce the amount of information used to describe the data(
:he trade-off of slightl! reduced audio qualit! is clearl! outweighed for most practical audio
applications where users cannot perceive an! difference and space requirements are substantiall!
reduced( $or e.ample* on one 98* one can fit an hour of high fidelit! music* less than 7 hours of music
compressed losslessl!* or D hours of music compressed in ,PG format at medium bit rates(
Video compression refers to reducing the $uantit% of data used to represent digital video i"ages&
and is a straightforward co"'ination of i"age co"pression and "otion co"pensation# (his article
deals with its applications) co"pressed video can effectivel% reduce the 'andwidth re$uired to trans"it
video via terrestrial 'roadcast& via ca'le (*& or via satellite (* services
,ost video compression is loss! H it operates on the premise that much of the data present before
compression is not necessar! for achieving good perceptual qualit!( $or e.ample* 8V8s use a video
coding standard called ,PEG-7 that can compress around two hours of video data b! 1I to GJ times*
while still producing a picture qualit! that is generall! considered high-qualit! for standard-definition
video( Video compression is a tradeoff between dis0 space* video qualit!* and the cost of hardware
required to decompress the video in a reasonable time( However* if the video is overcompressed in a
loss! manner* visible (and sometimes distracting) artifacts can appear(
Video compression t!picall! operates on square-shaped groups of neighboring pi.els* often called
macrobloc0s( :hese pi.el groups or bloc0s of pi.els are compared from one frame to the ne.t and the
video compression codec (encode%decode scheme) sends onl! the differences within those bloc0s( :his
wor0s e.tremel! well if the video has no motion( " still frame of te.t* for e.ample* can be repeated
with ver! little transmitted data( &n areas of video with more motion* more pi.els change from one
frame to the ne.t( Bhen more pi.els change* the video compression scheme must send more data to
0eep up with the larger number of pi.els that are changing( &f the video content includes an e.plosion*
flames* a floc0 of thousands of birds* or an! other image with a great deal of high-frequenc! detail* the
qualit! will decrease* or the variable bitrate must be increased to render this added information with the
same level of detail(
:he programming provider has control over the amount of video compression applied to their video
programming before it is sent to their distribution s!stem( 8V8s* +lu-ra! discs* and H8 8V8s have
video compression applied during their mastering process* though +lu-ra! and H8 8V8 have enough
disc capacit! that most compression applied in these formats is light* when compared to such e.amples
as most video streamed on the internet* or ta0en on a cellphone( )oftware used for storing video on hard
drives or various optical disc formats will often have a lower image qualit!* although not in all cases(
High-bitrate video codecs with little or no compression e.ist for video post-production wor0* but create
ver! large files and are thus almost never used for the distribution of finished videos( ?nce e.cessive
loss! video compression compromises image qualit!* it is impossible to restore the image to its original
qualit!
Video is basicall! a three-dimensional arra! of color pi.els( :wo dimensions serve as spatial
(hori;ontal and vertical) directions of the moving pictures* and one dimension represents the time
domain( " data frame is a set of all pi.els that correspond to a single time moment( +asicall!* a frame
is the same as a still picture(
Video data contains spatial and temporal redundanc!( )imilarities can thus be encoded b! merel!
registering differences within a frame (spatial)* and%or between frames (temporal)( )patial encoding is
performed b! ta0ing advantage of the fact that the human e!e is unable to distinguish small differences
in color as easil! as it can changes in brightness and so ver! similar areas of color can be Caveraged
outC in a similar wa! to /peg images (JPEG image compression $"K* part 1%7)( Bith temporal
compression onl! the changes from one frame to the ne.t are encoded as often a large number of the
pi.els will be the same on a series of frames(