New MPEG-H standard uses half the bandwidth of MPEG-4 with no loss in video quality

Your streaming video players are about to get an upgrade.

Believe me when say this is a Big Effing Deal.

MPEG-H products should hit mobile networks sometime next year. Cable and satellite providers will take longer to adopt it, but the allure of such significant bandwidth savings should be very hard to resist.

Oh, and the next time your kid asks you why she should study math, tell her this is why. These video compression algorithms are 100% math. Really cool math, designed for incredibly powerful computer chips.

Like MPEG-2 and -4, H.265 builds on its predecessors. Some improvements include larger block structures with flexible mechanisms of sub-partitioning. In the draft specification, the traditional MPEG macroblock structure is replaced with variable-block-sized coding units, (CUs) which define the sub-partitioning of a picture into rectangular regions. Each CU in turn contains one or more variable-block-sized prediction units (PUs) and transform units (TUs). Each TU is processed by performing a spatial block transform, and quantizing the resulting transform coefficients. Within the prediction loop, an adaptive loop filter (ALF) is applied, then the frame is copied into a reference decoded picture buffer, a process that improves both objective and subjective picture quality. As in H.264, context-adaptive entropy coding schemes are used.

You know, I actually understand most of that. Conceptually anyway. But things sure have come a long way from the linear algebra I learned. And that's why this stuff is so cool.

Posted at 19:09 by Chris Wysocki   [/tech]   Comments | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: MPEG-H H.265 MPEG-4 H.264 video   |   Tweet