[dugmar]

Can I get in simple English what that all means? How do I know what I am watching on my HDTV? What's the difference between them all?

 

[hasan]

Can I get in simple English what that all means? How do I know what I am watching on my HDTV? What's the difference between them all?

HR20 Information Resources : at the top of the front page of this forum is a document that explains all the acronyms you asked about.

 

[Tom Robertson]

Can I get in simple English what that all means? How do I know what I am watching on my HDTV? What's the difference between them all?

MPEG is Motion Pictures Experts Group. A very large contribution they have made is standardizing how to compress video signals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpeg

MPEG2 and MPEG4 are the most common versions of the compression scheme that have been adopted, but 1, 3 and many other have been at least proposed.

Directv used a modified (almost) MPEG2 since their launch for all Standard TV and HDTV content. With the most recent satellite, receiver, dish, and HD channel launches, Directv has started to put some HD content in the newer, better for HD, MPEG4 compression scheme.

BTW one of the sneakier parts to MPEG2 and 4 is the ability to adjust the ongoing bitrate for the data. With sufficiently high amounts of data, MPEG2 and 4 are lossless, the picture can be reconstructed completely with no loss of detail. In practical terms, tho, no carrier can afford that kind of bandwidth for very many channels, so we have carefully engineered loss. (Ok, sometimes they screw up and we get way too much loss, HDLite.)

Cheers,
Tom

 

[P Smith]

Some clarification: MPEG-4 is a suite of standards, practically we discuss H.264 compression standard for video stream (SD or HD).

 

[Tom Robertson]

Thanks for the clarification, I didn't realize that until I actually read more of the Wikipedia link myself.

May we all have stability in our households...
Tom

 

[mikeliedke]

I couldn't find the information in the "Information & Resources" section... does anyone know what it's titled?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Coffey77]

Careful with Wikipedia, they're not always accurate. I'm not saying they aren't this time, just that they don't always have the right facts. I've seen it with my own eyes.