ISO/IEC 13818-1, “Information technology – Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information – Part 1: Systems,” has just been updated with the release of the 5th Edition. It is certainly interesting because in essence it is a publication released by all three of the international standards bodies, ISO, IEC and ITU.
It is labeled a joint ISO/IEC publication, but you’ll soon see it’s identical to the ITU Recommendation ITU-T H.222.0 from June 2012 Edition with Amendments 1 through 5 interfiled. Please note: This ITU-T H222.0 consolidated edition was also republished as the 10/2015 edition by ITU, so the ISO/IEC published document will have the 2014 date at the bottom of each page. The only uniquely ISO/IEC material are the cover and back pages and 2 additional pages in the foreword.
The previous 4th Edition of the ISO/IEC 13818-1 had adopted the 2012 Edition of the ITU publication. Then, the ITU amendments 2 through 4 were republished as ISO/IEC 13818-1 Amendments 2 through 4 in 4/2014. This new consolidated publication integrates all 5 of the amendments. However, if you do check out the ITU source document, you’ll notice that an additional amendment has been released since 10/2014 (a 4/2015 Amendment 1).
What exactly does the document address that’s resulted in participation by all three standards organizations? As a non-technical person it looks to me like the ISO/IEC 13818-1 provides the method for taking both audio and video streams, turning them into PES (packetized elementary streams) packets, and transporting them via a transport stream and a program stream. These streams are suitable for both storage and transmission.
In more technical terms, the standard/recommendation provides developers with the rules for the system layer of coding, focusing in on the combination and synchronization of both video and audio. Here’s the list of basic functions that pointed out by ITU in regards to this publication:
- The synchronization of multiple compressed streams on decoding,
- The interleaving of multiple compressed streams into a single stream,
- The initialization of buffering for decoding start up,
- Continuous buffer management,
- Time identification, and
- Multiplexing and signalling of various components in a system stream.
If this standard relates to your business, you’ll want to get a copy of the new 5th Edition. All three organizations require purchase of the document and you’ll want to use an authorized dealer for this. Turn to Document Center Inc. and order on our website at www.document-center.com or contact our staff for more information. They can be reached by phone (650-591-7600), fax (650-591-7617) or email (info@document-center.com).
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ISO/IEC 13818-1, “Information technology – Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information – Part 1: Systems,” has been updated with a new Amendment 1, “Delivery of timeline for external data.” FYI: This new Amendment adopts the ITU-T H.222.0 (2014)/Amd.1 (04/2015).