MPEG-1
| Filename extension |
.mpeg, .mpg, .mpe, .mp1, .mp2, .mp3, .m1v, .m1a, .m2a, .m2v, .mpa, .mpv |
|---|---|
| Internet media type |
audio/mpeg, video/mpeg |
| Developed by | MPEG (part of ISO/IEC JTC 1) |
| Initial release | 6 December 1991 |
| Latest release | ISO/IEC TR 11172-5:1998 October 1998 |
| Type of format | audio, video, container |
| Extended from | JPEG, H.261 |
| Extended to | MPEG-2 |
| Standard | ISO/IEC 11172 |
| Open format? | Yes |
| Free format? | Yes |
MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to about 1.5 Mbit/s (26:1 and 6:1 compression ratios respectively) without excessive quality loss, making video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting (DAB) practical.
Today, MPEG-1 has become the most widely compatible lossy audio/video format in the world, and is used in a large number of products and technologies. Perhaps the best-known part of the MPEG-1 standard is the first version of the MP3 audio format it introduced.
The MPEG-1 standard is published as ISO/IEC 11172, titled Information technology—Coding of moving pictures and associated audio for digital storage media at up to about 1.5 Mbit/s.
The standard consists of the following five Parts:
- Systems (defining a format for storage and synchronization of video, audio, and other data together in a single file—later dubbed the MPEG program stream to distinguish it from the MPEG transport stream format introduced as an alternative in MPEG-2).
- Video (compressed video content)
- Audio (compressed audio content), including MP3 and MP2
- Conformance testing (testing the correctness of implementations of the standard)
- Reference software (example software showing how to encode and decode according to the standard)