MPEG: a technological basis for multimedia applications

The Moving Picture Experts Group was established in 1988 in the framework of the Joint ISO/IEC Technical Committee (JTC 1) on Information Technology. They were given the mandate to develop standards for coded representation of moving pictures, associated audio, and their combination when used for storage and retrieval on digital storage media (DSM). In April 1990 they became Working Group 11 of JTC 1/SC 2, then in November 1991, WG 11 of JTC 1/SC 29. The three original work items of the group-coding up to 1.5, 10, and 40 Mbps-were nicknamed MPEG-1, -2 and -3, respectively. The group dropped the MPEG3 work item in July 1992 when it became apparent that the functionalities supported by the MPEG-2 requirements made it redundant. The current MPEG-4 work item, first proposed in May 1991 and approved in July 1993, targets audiovisual coding at very low bit-rates