The H.264 standard can be viewed as a "family of standards" composed of a number of different profiles, although its "High profile" is by far the mostly commonly used format. An additional goal was to provide enough flexibility to allow the standard to be applied to a wide variety of applications on a wide variety of networks and systems, including low and high bit rates, low and high resolution video, broadcast, DVD storage, RTP/ IP packet networks, and ITU-T multimedia telephony systems. This was achieved with features such as a reduced-complexity integer discrete cosine transform (integer DCT), variable block-size segmentation, and multi-picture inter-picture prediction. The intent of the H.264/AVC project was to create a standard capable of providing good video quality at substantially lower bit rates than previous standards (i.e., half or less the bit rate of MPEG-2, H.263, or MPEG-4 Part 2), without increasing the complexity of design so much that it would be impractical or excessively expensive to implement. It supports resolutions up to and including 8K UHD. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distribution of video content, used by 91% of video industry developers as of September 2019. H.261, H.262 (aka MPEG-2 Video), H.263, MPEG-1Īdvanced Video Coding ( AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, Advanced Video Coding ( MPEG-4 AVC), is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated integer-DCT coding. Advanced Video Coding Advanced video coding for generic audiovisual services It is not to be confused with AV1 or VC-1.