An international standards team is close to approving a new compression format for digital video, promising improvements as well as a few uncertainties for emerging multimedia technology.
Known as H.264, among other designations, the new format is turning heads over claims that it can deliver DVD-quality broadcasts over the Internet using considerably fewer network resources than rivals.
Created in a unique partnership between U.S. and European standards groups known as the Joint Video Team, the format, or codec, should be ratified as part of the MPEG-4 (Moving Picture Experts Group) multimedia standard by year’s end, according to Robert Koenen, chairman of the MPEG Requirements Group.
“The codec is the result of technical advances in the arena of video compression,” he said. “It’s quite impressive, especially in light of the powerful hardware available today to run multimedia applications.”
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