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DIS-1/S and DIS-1/L
Dallmeier electronic GmbH & Co.KG
MPEG compression
MPEG stands for „Motion Pictures Expert Group“ and is now divided into
the standards MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. MPEG-3 was integrated in
the MPEG-2 standard and is therefore no longer found as an independent
standard.
Unlike M-JPEG, the MPEG method does not compress each individual picture
but only, for example, every 12th individual picture. These individual pictures
are called intra-frames (I-frames). The pictures between these I-frames
are not transmitted in full – only the changes between the I-frames are
transmitted.
Between the two I-frames in this extremely simplified example is one picture
containing a change from the preceding I-frame. This severely reduced
picture is called a P-frame (P stands for Predicted).
Severe distortions in a picture’s contents may arise when there is only one
P-frame between two I-frames. This is combated by placing so-called B-
frames (B stands for bidirectional) between I-frames and P-frames. B-
frames draw their information contents through referencing with the
pictures which are transmitted both beforehand and afterwards. These
pictures can be I-frames or P-frames. B-frames are also known as
“bidirectional referencing frames”.
A sequence of I, P and B-frames is called a GOP (Group of Pictures).
The following diagram shows the relationship between the various frames.
P-frames always have preceding I-frames or P-frames as reference,
whereas B-frames use both preceding and follow-up I-frames or P-frames.
I-Frame 1
I-Frame 2
P-Frame