A bitstream format is the format of the data found in a

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...

of bits used in a digital communication or

data storage Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are con ...

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 compressi ...

Processing

Standardized interoperability specifications such as the video coding standards produced by the

MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by International Organization for Standardization, ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC that sets standards for media coding, includ ...

and the

ITU-T The International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three Sectors (branches) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is responsible for coordinating Standardization, standards fo ...

, 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, or the beginning of the data transmission. Some bitstreams are designed for this to occur, for example by using indexes or

key frame In animation and filmmaking, a key frame (or keyframe) is a drawing or shot that defines the starting and ending points of a smooth transition. These are called ''frames'' because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of f ...

s. Uses of ''bit stream decoders'' (BSD): *

Graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

(GPU) * H.264/MPEG-4 AVC * Unified Video Decoder (UVD) the video decoding bit-stream technology from ATI Technologies/AMD * PureVideo the video decoding bit-stream technology from Nvidia * Quick Sync Video the video decoding and encoding bit-stream technology from Intel

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bitstream Format Data compression

Processing

See also

References