MPEG-4 Systems: Overview

This paper gives an overview of Part 1 of ISO/IEC 14496 (MPEG-4 Systems). It "rst presents the objectives of the MPEG-4 activity. In the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards, `Systemsa referred only to overall architecture, multiplexing, and synchronization. In MPEG-4, in addition to these issues, the Systems part encompasses scene description, interactivity, content description, and programmability. The description of the MPEG-4 speci"cation follows, starting from the general architecture up to the description of the individual MPEG-4 Systems tools. Finally, a conclusion describes the future extensions of the speci"cation, as well as a comparison between the solutions provided by MPEG-4 Systems and some alternative technologies. ( 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.