MPEG: Historical origins

At the end of the 80'ies audio and video industry needed to definy new standards to make easier the advent of information's progressive digitalization. Three are the principal world organism interested: ITU (International Telecommunication Union), an U.N. agency that takes up telecommunications and broadcasting; IEC (International Electrotecnical Commission), charged with managing standard about electric and electronic field; ISO (International Organization for Standardization), which elaborates standardin many fields. In 1988 a group of expert, with members of ISO and IEC, was formed in order to develop standard for reproduction, codification,audio and video elaboration and their combination. This group wasnamed MPEG (Moving Picture Expert Group). At the beginning 25 people take part of MPEG then it became larger and larger until to count 400 engineers coming from industries and organization all over the world. The first succes of this group was determined by the wide welcome of the world trade to the first standard elaborated: MPEG1 (classified by the ISO as standard 11172 and its first three parts had been definitely approved in the 1993). It's divided in 5 parts and definies thechnics and operative instructions for audio - video digital information's codification on channels of max wideness as 1,5 Mbit/second. With MPEG1 they want give the possibilty to memorize on CD video with a qualitylike the one VHS. The MPEG2, presented at the end of 1994, represents the evolution of the first standard towars digital television, improving video qualities, the number of audio channels and defining characteristic of actualdigital broadcasting. This is the standard used onthe DVD's new support for the audio - video reproduction and by the digital broadcasting via satellite. Last october MPEG4 was approved: it introduces substantial innovations either about compression technics and signals' elaboration, either about interactivity with user. Besides possibilities of creation multimedia contentshas been enlarged, mixing natural and synthesizedvideo and using VRMI technology.