H.264 Advanced Video Coding is a document published by the international standards bodies ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union) and ISO/IEC (International Organisation for Standardisation / International Electrotechnical Commission). It defines a format (syntax) for compressed video and a method for decoding this syntax to produce a displayable video sequence.
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Surf’s transcoding subsystems for video applications support transcoding functionality which includes codec conversion (H.263, MPEG-4, H.264) and Version 5.0 of SurfWare-Media™ solutions feature support for H.264.
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The intent of the H.264/AVC project was to create a standard capable of providing good video quality at substantially lower bit rates than previous standards (e.g., half or less the bit rate of MPEG-2, H.263, or MPEG-4 Part 2), without increasing the complexity of design so much that it would be impractical or excessively expensive to implement. |
H.264/AVC/MPEG-4 Part10 contains a number of new features that allow it to compress video much more effectively than older standards and to provide more flexibility for application to a wide variety of network environments. |
In common with earlier standards (such as MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG4), the H.264 draft standard does not explicitly define a CODEC (enCOder / DECoder pair). Rather, the standard defines the syntax of an encoded video bitstream together with the method of decoding this bitstream. The basic functional elements (prediction, transform, quantization, entropy encoding) are slightly different than in previous standards (MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, H.261, H.263); the important changes in H.264 occur in the details of each functional element. |
H.264/AVC experienced widespread adoption within a few years of the completion of the standard. It is employed widely in applications ranging from television broadcast to video for mobile devices. In order to ensure compatibility and problem-free adoption of H.264/AVC, many standards bodies have amended or added to video standards so that users of these standards can employ H.264/AVC. |
H.264 Resources
Additional resources for H.264 policies, standards, technologies and applications include:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96059
MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Information
http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/H.264
H.264 wiki
http://www.vcodex.com/index.html
Download tutorials on H.264
http://videocodecs.blogspot.com/
Video coding fundamentals and H.264 |
H.264 Standards
http://www.atsc.org/standards/cs_documents/CS-TSG-659r2.pdf
http://ip.hhi.de/imagecom_G1/assets/pdfs/csvt_overview_0305.pdf
http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDetail?
CSNUMBER=43058&ICS1=35&ICS2=40&ICS3
http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.264/e
http://videocodecs.blogspot.com/
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H.264 General Information
H.264, or Advanced Video Coding (AVC) is an industry standard for video compression, ratified as part of the MPEG-4 standard (MPEG-4 Part 10). This ultra-efficient technology gives excellent results across a broad range of bandwidths, from 3G for mobile devices to video conferencing, broadcast and DVD. The H.264 Encoder/Decoder is a leading codec which provides superior video quality at a significantly lower bit rate, and supports the distribution of video applications on a variety of additional end devices.
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