Glossary

H.264 (also known as MPEG-4 AVC) is currently the de-facto leading standard for video compression. It was standardized in 2003 in a joint effort by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), known as the Joint Video Team (JVT).

H.264 is used in such applications as Blu-ray Disc, online videos wesbites (such as YouTube), DVB broadcast, direct-broadcast satellite television services, cable television services, and real-time videoconferencing.

The H.264 standard aimed at creating a standard capable of providing better video quality at substantially lower bit rates than previous standards (e.g. half or less the bit rate of MPEG-2), without increasing the complexity of design. Another goal was to provide flexibility to allow the standard to be applied to a wide variety of applications on a wide variety of networks and systems.

The H.264 name follows the ITU-T naming convention, where the standard is a member of the H.26x line of video coding standards. The MPEG-4 AVC name relates to the naming convention in ISO/IEC MPEG, where the standard is part 10 of ISO/IEC 14496, which is the suite of standards known as MPEG-4.