Fundamentals and Evolution of MPEG-2 Systems: Paving the MPEG Road

16Relationship to Download and Streaming Over IP

16.1 IP Networks and MPEG-2 Systems

When the first version of the MPEG-2 system specification was defined, the internet was a very promising environment. Many MPEG participants were extremely pleased that e-mail communication became possible; see Note 16.1. But e-mail was just one of the first internet applications; soon the internet started to play an increasingly dominant role in many applications. Initially, the bandwidth of the IP networks was too limited for the practical distribution of high-quality content to the home, but this improved over the years.

Note 16.1 Some Background on Communication within MPEG

To some extent, e-mail made it possible for MPEG to operate at the scale needed for the industry. During the development of MPEG-1, document exchange during the meetings was by paper copy and between meetings by fax. As a result, participants from a meeting usually returned home with way too heavy suitcases, while exchanging proposals in preparation of a meeting meant often spending hours with a fax machine, in particular when a large document of perhaps 20 or 30 pages was to be distributed to 20 people. At that time the fax machine did not have a memory to store pages, so each page had to be entered manually. There are better ways to spend hours…

1. Chad Fogg, e-mail message 9 September 1994, Top 10 Complaints of MPEG Delegates:
2. Nr 2: Difficult to edit drafts when Greenpeace protesters are constantly shouting ‘tree ...