MPEG-4 is going through a major evolution with H.264. EE Times reports that Sand Video, a startup based in Andover, Mass., will deliver a chip in 2003 that supports the real-time encoding and decoding of standard-definition video images in accordance with H.264.
Also known as L.26 or MPEG-4 Part 10, the H.264 standard, has demonstrated DVD-quality broadcasts at bit rates slightly under 1mbps.
A growing number of chip makers are seeking a piece of the H.264 pie. They include:
- VideoLocus (Waterloo, Ontario)
- Heinrich-Hertz-Institut (Berlin)
- Philips
- Texas Instruments (Dallas)
- Equator Technologies (Campbell, Calif.)
- Amphion Semiconductor (Belfast, Northern Ireland).
Sand Video’s H.264 video codec will maintain complete backwards compatibility with the existing MPEG standard. It is said to be “cost competitive to the current generation MPEG-only codec”. Service providers may have to choose between the newly ratified Advanced Simple Profile, or leapfroging to H.264 which should be ratified next spring. Common Multimedia Formats may add extensions.
It could impact the entire video chain including satellite distribution, players, laptops, PDAs and even cell phones, perhaps making video on demand cost/effective over broadband. Broadcast-quality, MPEG-4 encoding and decoding may make wireless camcorders or wireless PVRs possible. A couple of hours of video might be downloaded in minutes at 54Mbps or streamed over DSL or cable modems. South Korea’s biggest telephone company, Korea Telecom, will use Windows Media 9 for video-on-demand and wireless movie delivery to some 4.4 million customers.
