Media Get Digital

Reference Software

One morning of July 1990, Arian Koster of KPN Research called me to make a suggestion: “What if MPEG developed a software implementation of the MPEG-1 standard?”. My immediate reaction was to ask what MPEG would gain from this. He said that various companies had already developed their own software…

Conformance

MPEG-1 is a great standard, but there is a potential problem in its practical adoption. Imagine I am a manufacturer and I choose to be in the business of making MPEG-1 encoders and decoders. I believe I have faithfully implemented all normative clauses in ISO/IEC 11172-1, -2 and -3 and…

Inside MPEG-1

MPEG-1 is formally known as ISO/IEC 11172. ISO/IEC refers to the fact that the standard is recognised by both ISO and IEC because JTC 1, the Technical Committee under which MPEG operates, is a joint ISO and IEC Technical Committee. The number “11172” is a 5-digit serial number that the…

The achievements of MPEG-1

Besides being an excellent set of pieces of technology, MPEG-1 is also a remarkable collection of “first ever” achievements.  It was the first integrated audio-visual standard. This was a great achievement and did set an example to the media industry. For the first time a standard had been produced where…