A Java-based MPEG-4 like video codec

The MPEG-4 specification was developed in response to the growing need for a coding method that can facilitate dynamic access to audio-visual objects for various applications such as digital storage media, Internet, various forms of wired or wireless communication etc. Although the specification is still in the working draft stage, the concepts and technologies of the specification are very encouraging and will inspire a lot of creative works in multimedia applications. This paper is devoted to the software implementation of the video part of MPEG-4. We develop a prototype of MPEG-4 like video encoder and a prototype of Java-based video decoder, which can be executed on the Internet, in the client-server model by using Java Applet. The prototype can show the strong functionality of MPEG-4 that includes user interactivity and object scalability, etc.