A Comparison
of MPEG-4, Windows Media and QuickTime Streaming Architectures in the Delivery
of Multimedia to Health Science Students.
John C. Pearson, Gary L. Nieder and Geethanandh Kandasamy
Wright State University School of Medicine, Dayton, Ohio, USA
ABSTRACT:
The release of MPEG-4
has introduced new options, and questions, into the already complex arena of
multimedia streaming. MPEG-4 is an open standard defining method for encoding,
storing, transporting, and decoding multimedia objects on a variety of playback
devices. MPEG-4 uses an 'object-based' paradigm that, in it's full glory,
'extracts' different elements from visual scenes and transmits them within
'elemental streams' that have independent interactivity and scalability. The
standard also provides seamless interoperability over a wide variety of
bandwidths and platforms. In principle, these capabilities seem to define
MPEG-4 as a revolutionary multimedia format destined to replace established
streaming architectures such as QuickTime and Windows Media. However, in the
present abstract we question whether this will actually be the case. Our
demonstration will (1) present an introduction to the basic technology
underlying the MPEG-4 landscape, (2) review what authoring tools are currently
available to allow use of this open standard, and (3) compare the quality and
functionality of MPEG-4 compliant streams to that of streams created using
other proprietary applications within QuickTime and Windows Media.
BENEFIT TO PARTICIPANTS ATTENDING SESSION:
Participants will
develop an appreciation for (1) how the MPEG-4 standard fits into the current
streaming video environment; (2) what products are currently available to
encode, transmit and decode MPEG-4 compliant media; (3) problems generally
inherent in streaming digital video over the Internet, and (4) how the image
quality of video streams produced by current MPEG-4 encoders compares to that
of proprietary codecs such as Sorenson Video.
|
John C. Pearson,
Ph.D. Department of
Anatomy Wright State University Dayton, Ohio 45435,
USA Phone: 937-775-3212 Fax: 937-775-3391 Email: john.c.pearson@wright.edu Website: www.anatomy.wright.edu |
CO-AUTHORS: Gary L. Nieder Geethanandh
Kandasamy Department of
Anatomy Wright State
University Dayton, Ohio 45435,
USA Phone: GLN:
937-775-2547 GK: 937-775-3212 Fax: 937-775-3391 Website: www.anatomy.wright.edu |