MPEG 4 Technology

[arn]

MacWorld UK (http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_news.cfm?NewsID=4465) reports that the MPEG-4 Industry Forum completed interoperability testing... which means that MPEG-4 Video encoded with different products will be playable by any decoder:

MPEG-4 offers something that RealNetworks and Microsoft don’t: choice. If you want video coding technology from Microsoft, then Microsoft is your vendor. With MPEG-4, there’s a choice of multiple vendors

According to the article, the MPEG-4 Industry Forum "is positive that the [licensing] issue will be resolved."

[Ensign Paris]

This seems like a good thing, can anybody tell me if MPEG-4 contains interactive technology?

Ensign

[Mr. Anderson]

There not too forthcoming on the release date, though. With QT6 directly linked to mpeg-4, their statement 'mpeg-4 will be introduced in the next 12 months', seems to say we won't be seeing Apples new version any time soon. That's too bad, but maybe Apple can get to market before anyone else, which would help them greatly.

I really like the idea of the webTV and cell phone video. That will create a demand for more all-in-one (phone/pda) products, much more powerful than what we have now.

I just hope we don't have to wait the whole 12 months.:(

[iGav]

As to whether MPEG 4 has interactive capabilities....

I can't wait to test its quality though!! MPEG 4 is going to be huge!!

But not in file sizes!!:p

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by Ensign Paris
This seems like a good thing, can anybody tell me if MPEG-4 contains interactive technology?

Ensign

If you're referring to QT's ability to handle Flash, then yes, QT 6 will handle Flash 5 tracks...

As far as I know the MP4 spec doesn't address QT tracks for interactivity, alternate audio, chapters, etc. All that stuff will probably remain strictly QT Pro material.

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU


If you're referring to QT's ability to handle Flash, then yes, QT 6 will handle Flash 5 tracks...

Flash's future might hold mpeg-4 in its future. They're already talking about streaming video for flash. Then using QT6, you could handle it all, have the interactivity, qt, and mpeg-4. This should be very cool.:cool:

[Taft]

MPEG-4 is an encoding method for video. Interactive abilties don't really enter into how video is encoded. For that, you'd look to technologies wrapping codecs.

When you think about it, interactive video would really be a bunch of videos strung together, somehow altering a video or storing video/pics in a new format. None of that changes how the codec operates.

This assumes current methods of implementation. Maybe in the future the work load of the codec will be expanded into the interactive world.

Matthew

[Choppaface]

actually Flash MX *does* have video support, but not sure if it has mpeg-4 support.... they've got a big problem about streaming though, just check the huge thread at the flashkit boards

[murk]

MPEG 4 is a very robust standard. If you really want to know everything about it…
Overview of MPEG-4 (http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com/standards/mpeg-4/mpeg-4.htm)