Video Compression: MPEG-4 (page 2)

MPEG-4 really shines in the areas of efficiency, scalability and industry support.

• Efficiency - Because it represents a refinement of earlier advances in MPEG compression and decompression technology, MPEG-4 promises to deliver higher quality video and audio at smaller data rates and file sizes. Yes, you heard that right: better video, smaller files and thus lower bandwidth (data rate). Of course this means you'll also need a faster computer.
• Scalability - Scalability just means that MPEG-4 is designed to deliver video and audio content at nearly any data rate, over any network, whether it's connected by high-speed fiber optics or dial-up modems. This is an advance over MPEG-2, which is limited primarily to DVD-quality video.
• Industry support - MPEG-4 is currently supported by just about every major player in the media world, including Apple, Microsoft, Sun, Dolby, AOL Time-Warner, Lucent and Sony (among others). MPEG-4 content is already in use in a huge number of media and communications devices, from televisions and home video players to mobile phones and, yes, camcorders.

So how can you make MPEG-4 work for you? Pretty simple, really. Because Apple's QuickTime technology has already fully embraced the MPEG-4 standard, any product that currently supports the latest version of QuickTime will allow you to export your videos using MPEG-4 compression. These products include, but are not limited to, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Discreet Cleaner and many others. Microsoft, too, has embraced MPEG-4 as a standard, and all Microsoft products (including XP's free Movie Maker 2 software) support it via the Windows Media 9 Series technology. It's worth noting, however, that the ISO (International Standards Organization) has chosen QuickTime as the standard for MPEG-4 delivery.

Don't take our word for it: investigate the MPEG-4 phenomenon for yourself. Apple's MPEG-4 pages (www.apple.com/mpeg4/) are loaded with information about how QuickTime has embraced the standard and numerous sample MPEG-4 files are available for viewing. Tech-heads will find a wealth of information at the MPEG-4 industry forum (www.mp4i1f.com). Of course, this research is only necessary if you explicitly want to watch MPEG-4 video for the sake of watching MPEG-4. The technology is so pervasive at this time that just by browsing around the Web for video, perhaps to watch the latest movie trailer, you'll eventually run into a QT or a WMV file that uses MPEG-4.

At the time of this writing, MPEG-4 is primarily used for small, easily transportable Web videos and, unfortunately, pirating Hollywood feature films. Keep your eye on this standard, however: it's mainly interesting not for how it's being used today, but for how it could potentially be used in the future. Within MPEG-4 lies the ability to create a whole new generation of devices, delivery systems, educational titles, corporate training objects, games, higher-quality music files, better disc-based interactivity and higher-quality video. All it takes is for people to dream about the possibilities.

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