[M4IF Technotes] RE: MPEG-4 Books

[Iain Richardson (ensigr)]

Sorry for the delay in posting, I didn't read my messages yesterday...
I agree with Ben that "The MPEG-4 Book" is a useful resource; I have one or two minor criticisms, though. You really need to know the basics of video compression and the preceding MPEG standards to follow the sections on MPEG-4 Visual; if you are reasonably new to the subject then this book probably isn't enough on its own to get up to speed. I was disappointed that there is virtually no discussion of recent developments such as the forthcoming Part 10; given the publication date of the book I would have thought that a "preview" of Part 10 (AVC or H.264) could have been included. Finally, there is quite a variation in style between the chapters and some rather poorly reproduced figures - disappointing for what is (to an academic !) not a cheap book. Perhaps it's inevitable in a multi-authored book.
I also agree with the comments on MPEG-4 Jump Start - sounds like the publisher is to blame for any misinformation? The split between the two books isn't at all obvious from the publicity material for the first book.
Finally, while we're all plugging our books :-) may I please mention "Video CODEC Design", published in May of this year, which covers MPEG-4 Visual and the emerging H.26L and is aimed at engineers/designers:
http://www.wiley.com/cda/product/0,,0471485535,00.html
Cheers
Iain Richardson
www.vcodex.com
www.rgu.ac.uk/eng/ict/
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Message: 4
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2023 15:13:31 -0700
From: Ben Waggoner <ben   interframemedia.com>
To: <technotes   lists.m4if.org>
Subject: [M4IF Technotes] MPEG-4 Books
(Rob Koenen asked me to copy this over from the Streaming Media MPEG-4 list)
Folks,
    There are a number of books about and discussing MPEG-4 out now.
    I got the "The MPEG-4 Book" edited by Fernando Pereira and Touradj
Ebrahimi last week.  It is quite good, and definitely the first truly useful
reference on MPEG-4.  Finally, an actual document which covers all the
tools, profiles, and levels used in the myriad facets of the MPEG-4
standard!  Compared to the standard itself, it's much more readable and
much, much cheaper.  The book also has an interesting overview of the MPEG-4
standards process, and information on verification.
    Overall, it's a must have for anyone involved in the creation of MPEG-4
products, and technically inclined content folks looking to implement MPEG-4
solutions.  It's not the kind of book that gets read cover to cover, but
I've found myself pulling it down from the bookshelf a couple times a day
since I've got it, answering a question in 30 seconds that would have taken
30 minutes on the web.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130616214/benwaggoner-20
    This is the first MPEG-4 book I've found worthy to add to my favorite
compression books section of my website:
http://www.benwaggoner.com/bookshelf.htm
    Another interesting but somewhat disingenuously titled book is "MPEG-4
Jump-Start" by Aaron E. Walsh and Mikael Bourges-Sevenier.  It's really all
about doing rich media in MPEG-4.  It looks like it would be very useful for
anyone doings BIFS, but doesn't have much applicable to the
audio/video/streaming side of things.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130600369/benwaggoner-20
    There is also the compelling sounding, but as yet unread "MPEG-4
Demystified" by Peter Symes.  Amazon only has it as some kind of special
order, and mine hasn't shown up yet.  This is surprising, since his previous
books haven't had any unusual distribution.  Anyway, I haven't read this
book yet, but Symes's excellent "Video Compression Demystified" was a
clearly written and well illustrated introduction to modern video and audio
codecs.  If his MPEG-4 book is half as good, it'll be great.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0071388893/benwaggoner-20
    And I just discovered that Amazon.com is now shipping MY book about
video compression (a couple of weeks early)!  The book is for hands-on
compressionists, and covers compression theory, preprocessing, workflow, and
many formats.  MPEG-4 has its own pretty long chapter (which Rob Koenen
helped me out with).
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/157820111X/benwaggoner-20
    Should definitely be useful for those looking to make MPEG-4 audio and
Video files.  Those making MPEG-4 compression tools would probably find the
sections on preprocessing and compression tools, and the tutorials, very
useful in understanding what mainstream commercial encoding tools look like
and do.
    There are a number of other forthcoming MPEG-4 books that look very
interesting, like one from the voluble John Watkinson, and a followup to
"Jump-Start."