H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2
| Information technology – Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information: Video | |
| Status | In force |
|---|---|
| Year started | 1995 |
| First published | May 1996 |
| Latest version | ISO/IEC 13818-2:2013 October 2013 |
| Organization | ITU-T, ISO/IEC JTC 1 |
| Committee | ITU-T Study Group 16 VCEG, MPEG |
| Base standards | H.261, MPEG-2 |
| Related standards | H.222.0, H.263, H.264, H.265, H.266, ISO/IEC 14496-2 |
| Predecessor | H.261 |
| Successor | H.263 |
| Domain | Video compression |
| License | Expired patents |
| Website | https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.262 |
H.262 or MPEG-2 Part 2 (formally known as ITU-T Recommendation H.262 and ISO/IEC 13818-2, also known as MPEG-2 Video) is a video coding format standardised and jointly maintained by ITU-T Study Group 16 Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), and developed with the involvement of many companies. It is the second part of the ISO/IEC MPEG-2 standard. The ITU-T Recommendation H.262 and ISO/IEC 13818-2 documents are identical.
The standard is available for a fee from the ITU-T and ISO. MPEG-2 Video is very similar to MPEG-1, but also provides support for interlaced video (an encoding technique used in analog NTSC, PAL and SECAM television systems). MPEG-2 video is not optimized for low bit-rates (e.g., less than 1 Mbit/s), but somewhat outperforms MPEG-1 at higher bit rates (e.g., 3 Mbit/s and above), although not by a large margin unless the video is interlaced. All standards-conforming MPEG-2 Video decoders are also fully capable of playing back MPEG-1 Video streams.