New video compression standard

[Brian Ellis]

The ISO guys have just published a new MPEG-7 standard, specifically for multimedia applications, including the Internet. Basically, it is similar to MPEG-2 for the pure video compression, with some enhancements. The major difference is that it is associated with a much improved searchable database which is compressed separately, as I understand it. This means that the database, which can link into every transition can be very rapidly accessed, a desired sequence selected and started with virtually no delay (currently, the database system requires decompression of the video to identify a start point, taking quite some time). In order to do this, some complex new transition detection algorithms have been developed. Tests show that the maximum error in detecting the start or end of a transition is ± 1 frame and that "false transitions", such as the rapid panning of the camera or filling the frame with a rapidly moving object are detected as such. The same algorithms are used to ensure that the first frame of any sequence is correctly identified as a key frame during rendering.

FWIW

[dhn]

Some Links

http://www.mpeg-7.com/

http://www.cselt.it/mpeg/standards/mpeg-7/mpeg-7.htm