The 4:2:2 profile of MPEG-2 for use in a studio environment

Discusses MPEG-2 experiments conducted at the Institute for Communications Technology, Braunschweig Technical University. Preliminary results are that: the 4:2:2 profile of MPEG-2 is well suited for most studio and post-production applications. It is the only internationally standardized compression scheme which at the same time allows accurate editing of the compressed data stream, yields good to excellent quality and allows flexible use. The experiments discussed show that at a data rate of 30 Mbit/s the results of most test items were indistinguishable from the original scene; in some cases slight, acceptable impairment appeared. Further improvement of the performance can be reached by increasing the data rate up to the limit of 50 Mbit/s. Nevertheless, for some applications which demand an extremely high quality or involve a lot of processing such as digital video effects and chroma keying, the 4:2:2 profile will not provide transparent quality. In such cases the use of digital serial component equipment according to ITU-R BT. 601 will be preferable