Next-generation multimedia coding standard: MPEG-4

MPEG-4 is an international standard for multimedia coding that has been defined by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11. Conventional audio-visual coding is for compression of natural images, natural audio and speech, whereas, MPEG-4 is for compression of synthetic images such as computer graphics and synthetic audio as well as natural audio-visual sources. These sources are separately coded as different objects at the encoder so that they can be decoded according to user preference. This article describes MPEG-4 version one, for which the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) voting phase has finished (1999).