# MPEG program stream

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Container format for multiplexing digital audio, video and more

MPEG Program Stream Filename extension .mpg, .mpeg, .m2p, .ps Internet media type video/MP2P,[1] video/MP1S,[1] video/mpeg[2][3] Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) public.mpeg[2][3] Developed by MPEG Initial release August 1993; 32 years ago (1993-08)[4] Latest release ISO/IEC 13818-1:2019 June 2019; 7 years ago (2019-06) Type of format Container format Container for Audio, video, data Extended to VOB, EVO, MOD Standard ISO/IEC 11172-1,[4] ISO/IEC 13818-1,[5] ITU-T H.222.0[6][7] Open format? Yes Free format? Yes[8]

**Program stream** (**PS** or **MPEG-PS**) is a [container format](/source/Container_format_(digital)) for [multiplexing](/source/Multiplexing) [digital audio](/source/Digital_audio), [video](/source/Video) and more. The PS format is specified in [MPEG-1](/source/MPEG-1) Part 1 (ISO/IEC 11172-1) and [MPEG-2](/source/MPEG-2) Part 1, Systems (ISO/IEC standard 13818-1[9]/ITU-T H.222.0[6][7]). The MPEG-2 Program Stream is analogous and similar to ISO/IEC 11172 Systems layer and it is forward compatible.[10][11]

Program streams are used on [DVD-Video](/source/DVD-Video) discs and [HD DVD](/source/HD_DVD) video discs, but with some restrictions and extensions.[12][13] The filename extensions are [VOB](/source/VOB) and [EVO](/source/Enhanced_VOB) respectively.

## Coding structure

Program streams are created by combining one or more [packetized elementary streams](/source/Packetized_elementary_stream) (PES), which have a common time base, into a single stream. It is designed for reasonably reliable media such as disks, in contrast to [MPEG transport stream](/source/MPEG_transport_stream) which is for data transmission in which loss of data is likely. Program streams have variable size records and minimal use of [start codes](/source/Start_code) which would make over the air reception difficult, but has less overhead. Program stream coding layer allows only one [program](/source/MPEG_transport_stream#Programs) of one or more elementary streams to be packaged into a single stream, in contrast to transport stream, which allows multiple programs.[10]

MPEG-2 Program stream can contain MPEG-1 Part 2 video, [MPEG-2 Part 2](/source/MPEG-2_Part_2) video, MPEG-1 Part 3 audio ([MP3](/source/MPEG-1_Audio_Layer_III), [MP2](/source/MPEG-1_Audio_Layer_II), [MP1](/source/MPEG-1_Audio_Layer_I)) or MPEG-2 Part 3 audio.[10] It can also contain [MPEG-4 Part 2](/source/MPEG-4_Part_2) video, MPEG-2 Part 7 audio ([AAC](/source/Advanced_Audio_Coding)) or MPEG-4 Part 3 (AAC) audio,[10] but they are rarely used.[*[citation needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)*] The MPEG-2 Program stream has provisions for non-standard data (e.g. [AC-3](/source/Dolby_AC-3) audio or subtitles) in the form of so-called private streams.[14] International Organization for Standardization authorized [SMPTE](/source/SMPTE) Registration Authority, LLC as the registration authority for MPEG-2 format identifiers. It publishes a list of compression formats which can be encapsulated in MPEG-2 transport stream and program stream.[15]

## Coding details

Partial MPEG-2 Program Stream pack header format[16] Name Number of bits Description sync bytes 32 0x000001BA marker bits 2 01b for MPEG-2 version. The marker bits for the MPEG-1 version are 4 bits with value 0010b. System clock [32..30] 3 System Clock Reference (SCR) bits 32 to 30 marker bit 1 1 Bit always set. System clock [29..15] 15 System clock bits 29 to 15 marker bit 1 1 Bit always set. System clock [14..0] 15 System clock bits 14 to 0 marker bit 1 1 Bit always set. SCR extension 9 marker bit 1 1 Bit always set. bit rate 22 In units of 50 bytes per second. marker bits 2 11 Bits always set. reserved 5 reserved for future use stuffing length 3 stuffing bytes 8*stuffing length system header (optional) 0 or more if system header start code follows: 0x000001BB

Partial system header format Name Number of bytes Description sync bytes 4 0x000001BB header length 2 rate bound and marker bits 3 audio bound and flags 1 flags, marker bit, and video bound 1 Packet rate restriction and reserved byte 1

## See also

- [Elementary stream](/source/Elementary_stream)

- [MPEG transport stream](/source/MPEG_transport_stream)

## References

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-rfc3555_1-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-rfc3555_1-1) Hoschka, Philipp; Casner, Stephen L. (July 2003). ["RFC 3555 - MIME Type Registration of RTP Payload Formats"](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3555#page-39). Retrieved 2010-03-20.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-pronom-mpeg2ps_2-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-pronom-mpeg2ps_2-1) ["Details for: MPEG-2 Program Stream"](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/Format/proFormatSearch.aspx?status=detailReport&id=660). *PRONOM: The technical registry*. [The National Archives (United Kingdom)](/source/The_National_Archives_(United_Kingdom)).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-pronom-mpeg1ps_3-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-pronom-mpeg1ps_3-1) ["Details for: MPEG-1 Program Stream"](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/Format/proFormatSearch.aspx?status=detailReport&id=659). *PRONOM: The technical registry*. [The National Archives (United Kingdom)](/source/The_National_Archives_(United_Kingdom)).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-11172-1_4-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-11172-1_4-1) ISO (1993). ["ISO/IEC 11172-1:1993 - Information technology -- Coding of moving pictures and associated audio for digital storage media at up to about 1,5 Mbit/s -- Part 1: Systems"](http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=19180). Retrieved 2010-07-18.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-13818-1_5-0)** ISO (1996). ["ISO/IEC 13818-1:1996 - Information technology -- Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information: Systems"](http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?csnumber=22989). Retrieved 2010-07-18.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-h2220-summary_6-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-h2220-summary_6-1) ITU-T (May 2006). ["H.222.0 Summary"](https://web.archive.org/web/20110519041216/http://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-t/rec/h/T-REC-H.222.0-200605-I%21%21SUM-HTM-E.htm). Archived from [the original](http://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-t/rec/h/T-REC-H.222.0-200605-I!!SUM-HTM-E.htm) on 2011-05-19. Retrieved 2010-06-03.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-h2220_7-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-h2220_7-1) ITU-T. ["H.222.0 : Information technology - Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information: Systems"](http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.222.0). Retrieved 2010-06-03.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** [*MPEG-2 Encoding Family*](https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000335.shtml) (Full draft). Sustainability of Digital Formats. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. 14 February 2012. Retrieved 13 December 2021. Licenses pertain to tools and not to streams or files per se.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-mpeg2systems-neuron_9-0)** [*ISO/IEC 13818-1:2000 - Information technology -- Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information: Systems*](https://web.archive.org/web/20100611214610/http://neuron2.net/library/mpeg2/iso13818-1.pdf) (PDF), neuron2.net, 2000-12-01, archived from [the original](http://neuron2.net/library/mpeg2/iso13818-1.pdf) (PDF) on 2010-06-11

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-iso13818_10-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-iso13818_10-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-iso13818_10-2) [***d***](#cite_ref-iso13818_10-3) ISO (2000-12-01) [ISO/IEC 13818-1 : 2000, Second edition](https://web.archive.org/web/20100611214610/http://neuron2.net/library/mpeg2/iso13818-1.pdf) Page X, Retrieved on 2009-07-25

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** [Data Broadcasting, MPEG-2 Transport Basics, MPEG-2 Program Stream](https://books.google.com/books?id=L7N0LQvBKtYC&dq=mpeg%20program%20stream%20specification&pg=PA39), Retrieved on 2009-07-25

1. **[^](#cite_ref-mpeg-dvd_12-0)** [DVD - MPeg differences](https://dvd.sourceforge.net/dvdinfo/dvdmpeg.html), Retrieved on 2009-07-24

1. **[^](#cite_ref-13)** MPEG.org (July 21, 1996) [DVD Technical Notes - Video Data Specifications](http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/DVD/Book_B/Video.html) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20150621150928/http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/DVD/Book_B/Video.html) 2015-06-21 at the [Wayback Machine](/source/Wayback_Machine), Retrieved on 2009-07-25

1. **[^](#cite_ref-whatisvob_14-0)** [What is a VOB file](http://www.mpucoder.com/DVD/vobov.html), Retrieved on 2009-07-26

1. **[^](#cite_ref-15)** ["MPEG Transport Stream Identifiers"](https://smpte-ra.org/mpeg-ts-ids). SMPTE Registration Authority, LLC. Retrieved 2016-09-16.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-16)** ["Pack Header"](https://dvd.sourceforge.net/dvdinfo/packhdr.html). *dvd.sourceforge.net*.

## External links

- [MPEG-2](http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/standards/mpeg-2/mpeg-2.htm) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20130421094015/http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/standards/mpeg-2/mpeg-2.htm) 2013-04-21 at the [Wayback Machine](/source/Wayback_Machine)

- [Official MPEG web site](http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/)

- [BBC On MPEG](https://web.archive.org/web/20121113135154/http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/papers/index-mpeg-vision.shtml)

- [RFC 3555](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3555#page-40) - MIME Type Registration of RTP Payload Formats (video/MP2P, video/MP1S)

v t e Multimedia compression and container formats Video compression ISO, IEC, MPEG DV MJPEG Motion JPEG 2000 MPEG-1 MPEG-2 Part 2 MPEG-4 Part 2 / ASP Part 10 / AVC Part 33 / IVC MPEG-H Part 2 / HEVC MPEG-I Part 3 / VVC MPEG-5 Part 1 / EVC Part 2 / LCEVC ITU-T, VCEG H.120 H.261 H.262 H.263 H.264 / AVC H.265 / HEVC H.266 / VVC H.267 / Enhanced Compression Model SMPTE VC-1 VC-2 VC-3 VC-5 VC-6 TrueMotion and AOMedia TrueMotion S VP3 VP6 VP7 VP8 VP9 AV1 AV2 Chinese Standard AVS1 P2/AVS+ (GB/T 20090.2/16) AVS2 P2 (GB/T 33475.2,GY/T 299.1) HDR Vivid (GY/T 358) AVS3 P2 (GY/T 368) Others Apple Video AVS Bink Cinepak Daala DVI FFV1 Huffyuv Indeo Lagarith Microsoft Video 1 MSU Lossless OMS Video Pixlet ProRes 422 4444 QuickTime Animation Graphics RealVideo RTVideo SheerVideo Smacker Sorenson Video/Spark Theora Thor Ut WMV XEB YULS Audio compression ISO, IEC, MPEG MPEG-1 Layer II Multichannel MPEG-1 Layer I MPEG-1 Layer III (MP3) AAC HE-AAC AAC-LD MPEG Surround MPEG-4 ALS MPEG-4 SLS MPEG-4 DST MPEG-4 HVXC MPEG-4 CELP MPEG-D USAC MPEG-H 3D Audio ITU-T G.711 A-law µ-law G.718 G.719 G.722 G.722.1 G.722.2 G.723 G.723.1 G.726 G.728 G.729 G.729.1 IETF Opus iLBC Speex Vorbis FLAC 3GPP AMR AMR-WB AMR-WB+ EVRC EVRC-B EVS GSM-HR GSM-FR GSM-EFR ETSI AC-3 AC-4 DTS Bluetooth SIG SBC LC3 Chinese Standard AVS1 P10 (GB/T 20090.10) AVS2 P3 (GB/T 33475.3) Audio Vivid (GY/T 363) DRA (GB/T 22726) ExAC (SJ/T 11299.4) Others ACELP ALAC Asao ATRAC CELT Codec 2 iSAC Lyra MELP Monkey's Audio MT9 Musepack OptimFROG OSQ QCELP RCELP RealAudio SD2 SHN SILK Siren SMV SVOPC TTA True Audio TwinVQ VMR-WB VSELP WavPack WMA MQA aptX aptX HD aptX Low Latency aptX Adaptive LDAC LHDC LLAC TrueHD Image compression IEC, ISO, IETF, W3C, ITU-T, JPEG CCITT Group 4 GIF HEIC / HEIF HEVC JBIG JBIG2 JPEG JPEG 2000 JPEG-LS JPEG XL JPEG XR JPEG XS JPEG XT PNG APNG TIFF TIFF/EP TIFF/IT Others AV1 AVIF BPG DjVu EXR FLIF ICER MNG PGF QOI QTVR WBMP WebP Containers ISO, IEC MPEG-ES MPEG-PES MPEG-PS MPEG-TS ISO/IEC base media file format MPEG-4 Part 14 (MP4) Motion JPEG 2000 MPEG-21 Part 9 MPEG media transport ITU-T H.222.0 T.802 IETF RTP Ogg Matroska SMPTE GXF MXF Others 3GP and 3G2 AMV ASF AIFF AVI AU BPG Bink Smacker BMP DivX Media Format EVO Flash Video HEIF IFF M2TS Matroska WebM QuickTime File Format RatDVD RealMedia RIFF WAV MOD and TOD VOB, IFO and BUP Collaborations NETVC MPEG LA Alliance for Open Media Methods Entropy Arithmetic Huffman Modified LPC ACELP CELP LSP WLPC Lossless Lossy LZ DEFLATE LZW PCM A-law µ-law ADPCM DPCM Transforms DCT FFT MDCT Wavelet Daubechies DWT Lists Comparison of audio coding formats Comparison of video codecs List of codecs See Compression methods for techniques and Compression software for codecs

v t e MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) MPEG-1 2 3 4 7 21 A B C D E G V M U H I 5 MPEG-1 Parts Part 1: Systems Program stream Part 2: Video based on H.261 Part 3: Audio Layer I Layer II Layer III MPEG-2 Parts Part 1: Systems (H.222.0) Transport stream Program stream Part 2: Video (H.262) Part 3: Audio Layer I Layer II Layer III MPEG Multichannel Part 6: DSM CC Part 7: Advanced Audio Coding MPEG-4 Parts Part 2: Video based on H.263 Part 3: Audio Part 6: DMIF Part 10: Advanced Video Coding (H.264) Part 11: Scene description Part 12: ISO base media file format Part 14: MP4 file format Part 17: Streaming text format Part 20: LASeR Part 22: Open Font Format Part 33: Internet Video Coding MPEG-7 Parts Part 2: Description definition language MPEG-21 Parts Parts 2, 3 and 9: Digital Item Part 5: Rights Expression Language MPEG-D Parts Part 1: MPEG Surround Part 3: Unified Speech and Audio Coding MPEG-G Parts Part 1: Transport and Storage of Genomic Information Part 2: Coding of Genomic Information Part 3: APIs Part 4: Reference Software Part 5: Conformance MPEG-H Parts Part 1: MPEG media transport Part 2: High Efficiency Video Coding (H.265) Part 3: MPEG-H 3D Audio Part 12: High Efficiency Image File Format MPEG-I Parts Part 3: Versatile Video Coding (H.266) MPEG-5 Parts Part 1: Essential Video Coding Part 2: Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding Other MPEG-DASH

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [MPEG program stream](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_program_stream) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_program_stream?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.