MPEG‑2

(Moving Pictures Experts Group) Pronounced "em‑peg". A standard for compressing video. MPEG is a lossy compression method, which means that some of the original image is lost during the compression stage, which cannot be recreated.

MPEG‑2 supports a wide variety of audio/video formats, including legacy TV, HDTV and five channel surround sound. It provides the broadcast-quality image of 720x480 resolution that is used in DVD movies. MPEG‑2 requires from 4 to 15 Mbps bandwidth. MPEG‑3 never came to fruition.