4G Wireless Video Communications

5

Advanced Video Coding (AVC)/H.264 Standard

5.1 Digital Video Compression Standards

It has long been recognized that to promote interoperability and achieve economics of scale there is a strong need to have international standards. Two organizations – ITU-T and ISO/IEC – have been most involved in setting those standards. In ITU-T, the Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) under Study Group 16 has focused on developing video coding standards. In ISO/IEC the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), formally known as Working Group 11 (WG-11) under SC-29 has concentrated on developing international coding standards for compressing digital video and audio. In ITU-T the main focal applications have been Video Conferencing and Video Telephony and in MPEG the main focal applications have been Digital Television transmission and storage. However, more recently, those lines have been blurring. ITU-T and ISO/IEC jointly developed two video coding standards: 1) MPEG-2/H.262 [1]; and 2) MPEG-4 Part 10/H.264 [2] also known as Advanced Video Coding (AVC). As the latter standard is known as both MPEG-4 AVC and H.264, in this text it is referred to as AVC/H.264 or sometimes simply as AVC. This standard is expected to play a critical role in the distribution of digital video over 4G networks. Full detailed description of this standard will require a complete book dedicated only to this subject. Due to limited space, only a high level description of this standard is provided to whet the appetite and give ...