A bitstream format is the format of the data found in a
stream of bits used in a
digital communication
Data transmission and data reception or, more broadly, data communication or digital communications is the transfer and reception of data in the form of a digital bitstream or a digitized analog signal transmitted over a point-to-point or ...
or
data storage application. The term typically refers to the data format of the output of an encoder, or the data format of the input to a decoder when using
data compression
In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compressio ...
.
Processing
Standardized
interoperability
Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader defi ...
specifications such as the
video coding
A video coding format (or sometimes video compression format) is a content representation format for storage or transmission of digital video content (such as in a data file or bitstream). It typically uses a standardized video compression algori ...
standards produced by the
MPEG
The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by ISO and IEC that sets standards for media coding, including compression coding of audio, video, graphics, and genomic data; and transmission and f ...
and the
ITU-T
The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three sectors (divisions or units) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is responsible for coordinating standards for telecommunications and Information Comm ...
, and the audio coding standards produced by the MPEG, often specify only the
bitstream
A bitstream (or bit stream), also known as binary sequence, is a sequence of bits.
A bytestream is a sequence of bytes. Typically, each byte is an 8-bit quantity, and so the term octet stream is sometimes used interchangeably. An octet may ...
format and the decoding process. This allows encoder implementations to use any methods whatsoever that produce bitstreams which conform to the specified bitstream format.
Normally, decoding of a bitstream can be initiated without having to start from the beginning of a
file
File or filing may refer to:
Mechanical tools and processes
* File (tool), a tool used to ''remove'' fine amounts of material from a workpiece
**Filing (metalworking), a material removal process in manufacturing
** Nail file, a tool used to gent ...
, or the beginning of the data transmission. Some bitstreams are designed for this to occur, for example by using indexes or
key frames.
Uses of ''bit stream decoders'' (BSD):
*
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...
(GPU)
*
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
*
Unified Video Decoder
Unified Video Decoder (UVD, previously called Universal Video Decoder) is the name given to AMD's dedicated video decoding ASIC. There are multiple versions implementing a multitude of video codecs, such as H.264 and VC-1.
UVD was introduced wit ...
(UVD) the video decoding bit-stream technology from ATI Technologies/AMD
*
PureVideo
PureVideo is Nvidia's hardware SIP core that performs video decoding. PureVideo is integrated into some of the Nvidia GPUs, and it supports hardware decoding of multiple video codec standards: MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264, HEVC, and AV1. PureVideo occu ...
the video decoding bit-stream technology from Nvidia
*
Quick Sync Video the video decoding and encoding bit-stream technology from Intel
See also
*
Elementary stream An elementary stream (ES) as defined by the MPEG communication protocol is usually the output of an audio encoder or video encoder. An ES contains only one kind of data (e.g. audio, video, or closed caption). An elementary stream is often referred ...
*
Stream processing
In computer science, stream processing (also known as event stream processing, data stream processing, or distributed stream processing) is a programming paradigm which views data streams, or sequences of events in time, as the central input and ou ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bitstream Format
Data compression