MPEG and multimedia communications

Digital television is a reality today, but multimedia communications, after years of hype, is still a catchword. Lack of suitable multi-industry standards supporting it is one reason for the unfulfilled promise. The MPEG committee which originated the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards that made digital television possible is currently developing MPEG-4 with wide industry participation. This paper describes how the MPEG-4 standard, with its network-independent nature and application-level features, is poised to become the enabling technology for multimedia communications and will therefore contribute to solve the problems that are hindering multimedia communications.