MPEG-4 Beyond Conventional Video Coding

An important merit of the MPEG-4 video standard is that it not only provided tools and algorithms for enhancing the compression efficiency of existing MPEG-2 and H.263 standards, but also contributed key innovative solutions for new multimedia applications such as: real-time video streaming to PCs and cell-phones over Internet and wireless networks, interactive services, and multimedia access. Many of these solutions are currently used in practice or have been important step-stones for new standards and technologies. In this lecture, the authors focus on three key innovations of MPEG-4 video that will continue to serve as an inspiration and basis for emerging standards, products, and technologies. These three topics are object-based coding and scalability, Fine Granularity Scalability (FGS), and error resilience tools. This lecture is aimed at engineering students as well as professionals interested in learning about these MPEG-4 technologies for multimedia streaming and interaction. This lecture is not aimed as a substitute or manual for the MPEG-4 standard, but as a tutorial focused on the principles and algorithms underlying it.