The VC-1 and H.264 Video Compression Standards for Broadband Video Services

The MPEG committee standardized the MPEG AVC (H.264) video coding standard in May 2003. The standard has since seen strong interest and adoption from the industry. A competing standard developed by Microsoft, referred to as VC-1, was standardized in SMPTE in April 2006. VC-1 is essentially a standardized version of Microsoft's Windows Media Video (WMV-9). Both H.264 and VC-1 are highly efficient compression standards that enable high-quality video services such as IPTV and Blu-ray Disc. H.264 and VC-1 are both mandated for high definition video services on Blu-ray Disc. These two standards are expected to form the basis for a new generation of high-quality broadband video services.