MPEG

MPEG, or Moving Picture Experts Group, is a working group of ISO/IEC responsible for developing internationally agreed standards for audio and video compression and related technologies. It operates under ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1, Subcommittee 29 (Coding of Audio, Picture, Multimedia Signals). The group was formed in 1988 to address efficient storage and transmission of digital video and audio on various media and networks.

Throughout its history, MPEG has published a series of widely adopted standards. MPEG-1, released in the early 1990s, defined lossy compression for video and audio and led to formats such as Video CD and MP3 as part of its audio layer. MPEG-2, published in 1995, expanded to higher-quality video and system-level specifications used in DVD-Video, digital television, and DVB broadcasts. MPEG-4, introduced in the late 1990s, offers a broader framework for audiovisual coding, including the AAC audio codec and the MP4 container; MPEG-4 Part 10 is H.264/AVC, a highly efficient video codestream used in Blu-ray, streaming, and broadcast.

MPEG also developed descriptor and description standards such as MPEG-7, for describing multimedia content, and architectural frameworks such as MPEG-21. In addition, newer activity groups address adaptive streaming and other modern distribution methods, building on MPEG-4 systems and related standards.

Overall, MPEG standards are widely used in consumer electronics, broadcasting, streaming media, and various professional applications, shaping how digital video and audio are stored, transmitted, and indexed.