Recently a new star come to codec world H.264 codec or MPEG-4 part 10 was developed by ITU-T and MPEG it is identical to technology known as AVC - advanced video coding fist released in 2003.
The goal in developing it was to create a standard for encoding video streams in much lower bit rate with compatibility to current standards and to maintain the quality of the video. This was achieved because of following improvements and new algorithms:
All this algorithm and techniques were used to improve quality and performance (Yes it will no require newest processor to play it). One of the main goals of creators of this standard was not just to improve quality and bit rate, but to do this with simple algorithm requiring less processing power.
| Use | Picture Size | Rate |
| Mobile Content | 176x144, 10-24 fps | 50-60 Kbps |
| Standard definition | 640x480, 24 fps | 1-2 Mbps |
| High Definition | 1280x720, 24p | 5-6 Mbps |
| Full High Definition | 1920x1080, 24p | 7-8 Mbps |
Attention
As with MPEG-2 Parts 1 and 2 and MPEG-4 Part 2, the vendors of H.264/AVC products and services are expected to pay patent licensing royalties for the patented technology that their products use. The primary source of licenses for patents applying to this standard is a private organization known as MPEG-LA, LLC (which is not affiliated in any way with the MPEG standardization organization, but which also administers patent pools for MPEG-2 Part 1 Systems, MPEG-2 Part 2 Video, MPEG-4 Part 2 Video, and other technologies).
Reference software implementation can be freely downloaded, but probably you will use some of popular implementations:
Source: Wikipedia
16.04.2005