Building on other well-proven international standards, such as MPEG-2 and H.261/H.263, MPEG-4 offers an interoperable solution for the compression, management and presentation of digital video and audio. Offering improved video compression and quality over its predecessors, combined with a non-discriminatory licensing authority, MPEG-4 has some distinct advantages.
Going beyond its predecessors MPEG-4 offers much more in terms of compression tools that target specific applications. This is achieved through a large array of profiles and levels, for both audio and video, as well as a rich layer of systems level solutions, such as a standardized file format and the management and presentation of multimedia data. Conversely, by not mandating the actual transport protocol, for delivering MPEG-4 data, the standard does not impose any restrictions on the physical communication medium.