The new MPEG-4 standard is fast becoming popular, but there is some confusion as to what it is and how it can be used. The first thing to realize is that MPEG-4 is not software, it is a standard which picks up where MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 left off. While MPEG 1& 2 dealt with compression/decompression of video and audio, MPEG 4 is based on the Apple QuickTime technology. Although the MPEG-4 file format is based on QuickTime, it resolves issues that haven't been accounted for in QuickTime, such as the issue of dynamically adjusting to a user's modem speed.

Overall, MPEG 4 offers a wide range of diversity with a few of the highlights covered here. According to Shelly Sofer, Public Relations Manager of MGI Software (mgisoft.com), "MPEG 4 is designed to deliver video over a much narrower bandwidth. It uses a fundamentally different compression technology to reduce file sizes than other MPEG standards and is more wavelet based. Not only does MPEG 4 offer broadcast capabilities, it offers some interactivity capabilities, meaning than you could click on something in a video and that would launch other things."

"Primarily, MPEG-4 is for the broadcast side, the distribution side of video. That could include the Internet, content providers, wireless tablets, cell phones to PDA devices. However, MPEG-4 is not a very good format for editing which is due to the way MPEG-4 works. A better format choice would be digital video, which offers a resolution of 720x480, which is the same as MPEG-4. However, MPEG-4 is more of a format for output." It offers high quality with low data transfer rates (from 20-1000Kbps).

MPEG-4 provides interlacing, resolutions up to 4096x4096 and a data rate range from 5Kbps to 10Mbps with Version 1. The MPEG-4 codec offers alpha channel support, an important feature when compositing video in real time over a background. A good example of this technology in practice is watching the television weather person, who is standing against a blank wall while the image of him/her is being blended with the weather information.