MPEG2 specs to make my own library ;)

[JoseD]

Ok, this is gonna sound too pretentious but I'd like to check out the MPEG2 specification to try to make my own en/decoder library, as a hobby project.
I've done a huge google search but couldn't came up with anything other than some pimps trying to get me to buy the specification! I mean it must be downloadable from the official site somewhere right ?

Regs
José

[freebird73717]

You might post this question at the http://forum.doom9.org as there are some encoder programmers who post there often.

Good Luck!

[redwudz]

That sounds more like you are looking for source code. MPEG-2 specs are fairly variable.

But you could start with this Wikipedia page, if you haven't been there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-2 Follow what links you can. The format is covered by patents, so you may just be able to find 'white papers' about various MPEG-2 subjects. Even MS doesn't include MPEG-2 with most of their OS's to avoid the patent fees.

[aedipuss]

most spec books that i know of are anything but free. the cd/vcd/svcd/dvd spec books have never shown up for free anywhere in the 10 years i've been around the movie scene. can't recall seeing an mpeg spec book either.

[disturbed1]

Here you go - http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/video/mssg-free-mpeg-software.html

Include the source code for the reference mpeg2 encoder and decoder.

You may also want to poor over the source code of bbmpeg and the bbtools, as well as mjpegtools mpeg2enc which are all based on the above sources.

[hank315]

You can download the MPEG2 spec here

[LarryEvilsizer]

Neuron2 has a library containing a free version of the MPEG2 spec on his site at http://neuron2.net/. Don't know if it is the latest and greatest, but I found it usefull in conjuction with the source code disturbed1 mentioned.

Select "Library" from menu on the left. Has the MPEG1 spec as well.

Good luck.

[JoseD]

Thanks for all the cool links! I'll check it out...

[gr3go]

Thanks for all the cool links! I'll check it out...

Did you managed to develop something?
I would need to develop a hardware accelerated mpeg encoder, a implementation for cpu would help me a lot!

Regards,
Gr3go

[JoseD]

@gr3g0
Thanks for the interest. The actual decoding (what matters!) is still unfinished because I don't think it makes sense to develop something that won't be different/better from what is already out there and my free time is scarce. So I'm reading bits here and there for what algorithms people normally use etc... to think of ways to improve it. I think there is space for improvement because people nowdays have become too used to stupid amounts of processing power. But it will take a while if it's ever finished TBH.

[creamyhorror]

This old post from an x264 developer's blog may be of interest:

Introducing Photon (an attempt at writing an MPEG-2-like format)