Format

MPEG-1 Program Stream

Summary

Name

MPEG-1 Program Stream

Identifiers

• Apple Uniform Type Identifier: public.mpeg
• MIME: video/mpeg
• PUID: x-fmt/385

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 ‘Program’ stream (PS) file (*.mpg, *.mpeg) generally contain both video and audio streams, generally for synchronised playback, and may carry a variety of other data (e.g. video captions).

Format encoding

Binary

File extensions

mpeg, mpg

Submitted by

Digital Preservation Department / The National Archives

Relationships

Has lower priority than

• MPEG-2 Program Stream
• Video Object File (MPEG-2 subset)

Has priority over

• MPEG 1/2 Audio Layer 3

Internal signatures

Changelog

• V123

  Release date

  9 June 2026

  • Updated

    MPEG-1 Program Stream: Priority added over fmt/134 MPEG 1/2 Audio Layer 3. Submitted by Digital Preservation Department, The National Archives (UK).

• V75

  Release date

  17 July 2014

  • Updated

    MPEG-1 Program Stream: Name changed to improve consistency across the MPEG formats. Description added. Improved specificity of BOF signature sequence and removed EOF signature sequence. Removed priority over Video Object File (MPEG-2 subset)

• V60

  Release date

  11 June 2012

  • Updated

    MPEG-1 Video Format: Existing generic signature refined to reflect version '1'. See below for new signature developed for x-fmt/386.