What happened to MPEG-3?

[PyRoMaNiA]

Was just wondering...MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 are everywhere, then there is MPEG-4 (DivX and XviD), so what happened to MPEG-3?? Was there ever an MPEG-3? If not why not, and if yes, what happened to it? Anyone know any MPEG-3 standards?

And as DivX and XviD are MPEG-4 why are they AVIs and not MPGs?

[bdgriff]

[b]I assume you never heard of MP3?? It's used to compress music files. I'd suggest you do a search (google) to find out about it...IT's a bit old hat.

[JackDudd]

Not true, mp3 = MPEG1 layer 3 and MPEG3 does not exist, why? Beats me..

[mdorion]

Was just wondering... so what happened to MPEG-3?? Was there ever an MPEG-3?

As I recall Mpeg-3 was intented for HDTV encoding until it was figured that Mpeg-2 specification could easily be extended to accomodate HDTV requirements. It was dropped.

Mario

[adam]

Correct, the format essentially only exists on paper because its function was essentially already incorporated into the existing mpeg2 standard.

There are some other gaps as well, not sure why though. After mpeg4 comes mpeg7 and then it jumps all the way to mpeg21.

[SaSi]

There are some other gaps as well, not sure why though. After mpeg4 comes mpeg7 and then it jumps all the way to mpeg21.

Right, they wanted to hit blackjack.

By the way, for an excelent discussion on the MPEG history and details (save for the ISO standard itself), visit
http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/frame/research/mpeg/mpeg2faq.html

If you read the MPEG-2 faq, I promise you you will make better use of Tmgenc or CCE or MCE (MainConcept Encoder) and also understand how to encode for VCD or SVCD compatibility. (It helped me anyway).