Recently released by the Moving Picture Expert Group (MPEG), the new MPEG-4 standard has been designed to revolutionise the transmission of digital audiovisual information through the use of an object-based model. As well as being designed for use over a wide range of transmission speeds, from less than 10kbit/s to over 1Gbit/s, it allows user and event interaction and supports a variety of objects, both natural (such as real sounds or video) Â and computer-generated.
Although data formats such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, RealVideo and QuickTime can be used to stream audiovisual information very effectively, they are limited to simply transmitting a fixed collection of information from one location to another. While still supporting such basic streaming data, MPEG-4 is designed to address broadband demand. It is therefore suited to use in multimedia broadcasting, teleshopping, remote monitoring, audiovisual database access and games over the Internet, digital terrestrial and satellite TV networks.
And because of its ability to work effectively even at low bit rates, it lends itself well to mobile phone networks, where it can be used for anything from video conferencing to simple information access.
