Format

MPEG-1 Elementary Stream

Summary

Name

MPEG-1 Elementary Stream

Identifiers

PUID: fmt/649

Format type

Video

Description

MPEG-1 is a lossy compression standard for video and audio, intended for use in Digital Storage Media (DSM) such as VideoCD and DVD (at the same encoding standard as VCD). It is designed to handle video frame-sizes of 352 x 288px, at a frame-rate of 25 frames per second (PAL) and a data rate of around 1.2Mbits/s; audio: up to 320 kbits/s (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III, *.mp3). MPEG-1 supports random access to stream content on playback. MPEG-1 Video supports only 'progressive' frame video. MPEG-1 compression can be relatively inefficient by modern standards. An MPG-1 ‘Elementary’ stream (ES) file (*.m1v) contains either a single video or audio stream (e.g. *.mp3). ES files are generally intended for video editing or other intermediate use, where separate audio content can be ultimately blended ('interleaved' or ‘muxed’) with a video stream to produce an output file containing both audio and video for synchronised playback.

File extensions

mpg, mpeg, m1v

Source

Digital Preservation Department / The National Archives

Relationships

Has lower priority than

• MPEG-2 Elementary Stream

Internal signatures

Changelog

• Updated in V115

  Release date

  15 November 2023

  MPEG-1 Elementary Stream: Modified internal signature offset values from null to 0 as part of a project to match PRONOM data with the xsd standard. Submitted by Digital Preservation Department, The National Archives (UK) (UK).

• Updated in V112

  Release date

  10 May 2023

  MPEG-1 Elementary Stream: Updated signature by broadening byte range. Submitted by The National Library of Australia.

• Added in V75

  Release date

  17 July 2014

  MPEG-1 Elementary Stream: Signature developed through PRONOM Research.

  MPEG-1 Elementary Stream: Outline Entry Added.