What is Video Format

This chapter gives description and comparison of video coding standards currently used in bandwidth limited mobile communications emphasizing at the same time the importance of coding efficiency and robustness, particularly for video applications. Due to its exceptional efficiency and performance a number of mobile service operators recognized and embraced relatively new H.264/AVC compression method. Utilization of this efficient compression method in the bandwidth limited and distortion prone mobile environment enables and provides transport of high quality video on low data rates. In order to demonstrate these abilities a comparison of H.264/AVC relative to MPEG-4 SP and H.263 method is presented. Comparison is performed using objective video quality assessment methods accompanied with description of different issues related to video quality measurement and its implication on coding process. Finally, comparison showed and confirmed great efficiency and performance possibilities, which will make H.264/AVC the ubiquitous coding technique of multimedia world in time to come.