Interoperability is a very controversial subject, with many keen fanatics on both sides of the issue. It can be defined as the ability to exchange and use information. How does this apply to the world of computers? Consider DVDs as an example: once you buy a film on DVD, you can play it back on your computer, portable/set-top DVD player, and nowadays in your car! All those devices, even though they are different, can read and understand the DVD format. This is because DVD is based on MPEG-2—a standard developed over many years of research by video experts from many companies and organizations.
MPEG-2 aimed for high quality and high bit-rate applications and therefore has limited scalability. Mediums having lower capacity (e.g. networks or digital discs) are unable to use MPEG-2 effectively. The next video standard—MPEG-4, was developed with scalability in mind and so many more devices are able to decode MPEG-4-compliant streams. This includes all of...