H.264 Video Prepares MPEG-4 For Prime Time
The good news on the educational front is that by its real name or a pseudonym, H.264 promises to be as close to a universal codec technology as any the digital video market has seen. H.264 was designed from inception to be used for both one-way (broadcast) and bi-directional (videoconferencing) applications. To properly educate the market, vendors will need to highlight all the benefits of H.264, including acquisition, distribution of SD or HD, and videoconferencing. In addition to quality and scalability, MEPG-4 vendors who offer H.264 must communicate the big picture: the fact that the codec is suitable for both synchronous and asynchronous types of communications. Until H.264, digitally transmitting a video news release across a network designed for videoconferencing required converting the broadcast signal to analog before re-encoding it through the videoconferencing codec, producing unacceptable artifacts.
The second area in need of assessment by those buying MPEG-4 with H.264 is technology stability. In September 2003, conceptual demonstrations of H.264 technology in MPEG-4 were shown at IBC in Amsterdam; undoubtedly several more vendors will be doing the same at the NAB and StreamingMedia shows in 2004, but H.264 is subject to the same hype curve that has plagued the introduction of almost every video encoding technology for the last decade.
For those who might doubt how steep this hype curve can be, recall the many years it took MPEG-2 to reach critical mass as a playback and transmission technology. Some would even argue that MPEG-2 is just now reaching critical mass. The same was true in the videoconferencing world with the move from H.261 to H.263. The hype cycle outran the technical stability of the available implementations for at least the first 18 months.
The hype-to-reality cycle may very well be shorter with H.264 but the industry needs to stop wringing its hands over lower-than-projected sales and start remembering that we often see a pattern that initiates with hype, dies down so low that it appears the technology is dead and then, almost miraculously, the technology emerges as a viable next-generation feature in many products. Vendors must invest the time to make the implementations work, entice a few early adopters to help finish the R&D cycle, show it to the broadcasters and then use the time while waiting for budget/adoption cycles to run their course to enhance and differentiate their implementations.