Start at the beginning: An MPEG Timeline
1990: The Motion Picture Experts Group, part of the ISO standards body, begins working on a digital video standard.
1992: The Motion Picture Experts Group releases the MPEG-1 standard. The goal of MPEG-1 was to take a first stab at the problems associated with digital video and to get video files to play back on a single-speed CD-ROM player on personal computers and early interactive set-top devices. The quality of MPEG-1 video is clearly worse than that of the best streaming media today, though better than low-quality streaming.
1994: Work begins on the standardization of MPEG-2. The goal was to achieve "VHS-quality" digital video at higher compression rates. DVD and satellite TV use the MPEG-2 standard. The non-existent MPEG-3 video format was originally supposed to be the HDTV standard, but HDTV screen size and aspect ratio were rolled into MPEG-2 as hardware, software and compression performance improved sooner than expected.
1998: Parts one and two of the MPEG-4 standard, covering low-bandwidth transmission issues and some of digital functionality, were approved in 1998 and 1999, respectively. MPEG-4 was originally conceived as a teleconferencing standard, to work at lower frame rates and resolutions than MPEG-2 for better teleconferencing performance. The interactivity portion of the standard evolved over time and has grown to be a major part of the standard's importance. The value of the original decisions focused on the teleconferencing application of the spec have been reinforced by the explosion of wireless PDAs and the incorporation of LCD screens into cell phones.
2000: Parts 3, 4 and 5 of MPEG-4, which cover a wider range of objects and interactivity, are still under development. For a full description of all that's included in released and upcoming versions of MPEG-4, go to www.cselt.it/mpeg/standards/mpeg-4/mpeg-4.htm
2001: MPEG-7, the next generation, focuses on metadata issues. The idea is that the objects and content of MPEG-7 digital video files should be easy to identify, archive, search, filter, and reuse. The MPEG-7 standard is expected to be approved in July of this year.
MPEG-21, the final frontier, aims to become a superset of all that came before it. It will address a number of issues covering deployment, pay-per-view, monetization, branding, and privacy.
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