troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Despite being shrunk, the video files are still a few hundred megabytes in size and will take hours to download over all but the fastest net connections.As U.S. It is unlikely that MP4 will prove such an instant success as MP3. When there are a lot of changes from frame to frame - in action packed moments for instance - the picture can go blocky. The early versions of the hacked Microsoft codec that are available on the internet are not perfect. On the web, MP4 is going by the name of DivX, the name of a failed DVD technology. Many websites are now offering MP4 versions of popular movies such as The Wizard of Oz, Saving Private Ryan and The Matrix. Microsoft has now locked the codec software so it can only be used with the Windows Media Player.īut the damage looks like it has been done. Just like MP3, the MP4 standard strips out the information that people will not miss and only encodes the elements that change from frame to frame of video. Each hour of video converts to 350 megabytes.īy contrast, an hour's worth of MP3 music is around 60 megabytes. Typically, it converts multi-gigabyte files into ones that are only a few hundred in size. This streamed video has to be radically compressed to ensure it arrives in a reasonable amount of time.īut hackers have found that when the codec is fed with high quality video from a DVD disc, it produces files that are much smaller than the original but are still watchable. It developed the software to compress and decompress video, called a codec, to help the Windows Media Player program handle moving pictures sent over the internet. MPEG-4 is used to compress video and is the successor to MPEG-2.īut a version that can turn massive movie files into a handier size has escaped on to the internet thanks to Microsoft. The MP4 standard was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group, the same folk who developed MP3. What MP3 has done for music on the internet, MP4 might do for movies.Īfter the software standard that compresses sound files comes one that shrinks video files into a more manageable size.Īlready pirated versions of films prepared with the MPEG4 software, or MP4 as it is becoming known, are turning up on websites.įilm studios have yet to take action against any of the pirates but are known to be watching how the technology develops. By BBC News Online internet reporter Mark Ward

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