Mpeg4

MPEG-4 is a family of international standards for the compression, storage, and transmission of audiovisual data, developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and published by ISO/IEC. Introduced in the late 1990s, the MPEG-4 suite was designed to provide efficient encoding for a broad range of networks and devices, with support for scalable quality, metadata, and interactive content.

Unlike a single codec, MPEG-4 comprises multiple parts that define video, audio, scene description, and file formats. The video component, MPEG-4 Part 2, provides block-based encoding suitable for consumer applications. The audio component, MPEG-4 Part 3, specifies the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) family. The widely used MP4 file format is defined in MPEG-4 Part 14 (ISO/IEC 14496-14), which can containerize video, audio, subtitles, and metadata. The MPEG-4 suite also includes system tools for synchronization, streaming, and scalability, enabling flexible delivery across devices and networks.

Applications and impact of MPEG-4 include digital media streaming, mobile device playback, and multimedia storage, with features such as multiple profiles and levels, support for metadata, and options for scalable or interactive content. In practice, the most efficient and widely deployed successor within the family is H.264/AVC (MPEG-4 Part 10), which offers greater compression efficiency and is dominant in many video applications. Nevertheless, MPEG-4 components such as AAC audio and the MP4 container remain prevalent in media production and distribution, often alongside newer codecs and formats.

Licensing and adoption considerations accompany MPEG-4 standards, as some parts involve patent rights managed through licensing pools. This has influenced implementation decisions and the choice of codecs and containers in various products and services.