<p>OK, MPEG is the Motion Picture Experts Group, it's a group of people who decide stuff about moving picture standards. Some of these standards are well known, such as MPEG2 which includes the standards for video on DVDs and digital television. There are also lots of MPEG standards that no-one has ever heard of like MPEG-M and MPEG-21.</p>

<p>One standard you have probably used is MPEG4, the standard used widely to compress video for the web. The MPEG4 standard includes the compression-decompression standard MPEG-4 Part 10 (most commonly known as H.264, but also known as MPEG4 AVC). </p>

<p>MPEG-2 is lossy. MPEG-4 files can be lossless, but more commonly they're lossy.H.264 is a far more efficient codec than MPEG-2, so the quality for a given bit-rate is much higher, and in many cases is <em>visually lossless</em>, i.e. you won't see the difference.</p>

<p>Surveillance may use either or neither of these standards, it totally depends on the equipment.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-17T07:54:46.543Z
Thank you for your explanation...Can you please suggest me a best link or pdf to better understand  MPEG and H.264 VIDEO COMPRESSION  techniques. It's very urgent to me..
user21290
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-18T12:31:57.737Z
This is the best link I've found so far: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=understanding+h.264+compression&t=ffab&ia=web
stib
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-16T05:01:11.580Z
2018-02-16T05:01:11.580Z
stib
<p>Are MPEG and  H.264  Lossless??
I need a brief explanation about lossy and lossles... And which compression technique is generally using in CCTV Surveillance applications of video??</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-16T17:34:35.987Z
Those formats *could* be practically lossless but the filesize would be unreasonable. A brief explanation would be: Lossy makes the most changes to the image favoring a smaller sized file at the cost of most small details and some larger detail (like adding block noise) whereas lossless attempts some compression while avoiding **any** change in the original; practically lossless means more compression but you can't see the degradation. One of the best compression techniques for CCTV (best image, high compression, mostly static scenes) is h265+: https://video.stackexchange.com/a/22145/18314 .
Rob
<codec><compression><h.264>
Lossless and lossy compression techniques
user21290
# Lossless and lossy compression techniques

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-02-15)

Are MPEG and H.264 Lossless??
I need a brief explanation about lossy and lossles... And which compression technique is generally using in CCTV Surveillance applications of video??

**Tags:** codec, compression, h.264

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Those formats *could* be practically lossless but the filesize would be unreasonable. A brief explanation would be: Lossy makes the most changes to the image favoring a smaller sized file at the cost of most small details and some larger detail (like adding block noise) whereas lossless attempts some compression while avoiding **any** change in the original; practically lossless means more compression but you can't see the degradation. One of the best compression techniques for CCTV (best image, high compression, mostly static scenes) is h265+: https://video.stackexchange.com/a/22145/18314 .  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2018-02-16. Score: 2 | Accepted answer

OK, MPEG is the Motion Picture Experts Group, it's a group of people who decide stuff about moving picture standards. Some of these standards are well known, such as MPEG2 which includes the standards for video on DVDs and digital television. There are also lots of MPEG standards that no-one has ever heard of like MPEG-M and MPEG-21.

One standard you have probably used is MPEG4, the standard used widely to compress video for the web. The MPEG4 standard includes the compression-decompression standard MPEG-4 Part 10 (most commonly known as H.264, but also known as MPEG4 AVC).

MPEG-2 is lossy. MPEG-4 files can be lossless, but more commonly they're lossy.H.264 is a far more efficient codec than MPEG-2, so the quality for a given bit-rate is much higher, and in many cases is *visually lossless*, i.e. you won't see the difference.

Surveillance may use either or neither of these standards, it totally depends on the equipment.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you for your explanation...Can you please suggest me a best link or pdf to better understand  MPEG and H.264 VIDEO COMPRESSION  techniques. It's very urgent to me..  
> **username_2**: This is the best link I've found so far: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=understanding+h.264+compression&t=ffab&ia=web  

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