Sustainability of Digital Formats: Planning for Library of Congress Collections

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Motion JPEG 2000 File Format

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Format Description Properties Explanation of format description terms

Identification and description Explanation of format description terms

Full name ISO/IEC 15444-3:2007. Information technology -- JPEG 2000 image coding system -- Motion JPEG 2000 (formal name); Motion JPEG 2000 (common name)
Description Object-oriented file wrapper designed for time-based audio-visual information, including video, audio, and other tracks. In contrast to the temporal or inter-frame compression found in formats like MPEG-2, MPEG-4_V, and MPEG-4_AVC, MJP2 frames are represented as separate entities encoded with J2K_C (lossy or lossless). The standard permits creators to declare profiles; the main specification defines the Simple Profile (described in the Notes to this description), while amendment 1 specifies two archive-oriented profiles. Amendment 1 also includes an annex that highlights the format's value to an archive that plans to ingest instances of digital cinema packages DCP_1_0 and its successors as standardized by SMPTE. Although the format is oriented to newer progressive-scan video streams and "the use of interlaced material is not recommended" (annex E.2), the specification's annex D provides guidance on the inclusion of interlaced streams.
Production phase Generally used for middle- and final-state archiving or end-user delivery.
Relationship to other formats
    Subtype of ISO_BMFF, ISO Base Media File Format
    Has subtype Motion JPEG 2000 Simple Profile, not described at this site at this time
    Has subtype Motion JPEG 2000 Motion Picture Archive Preservation Format Profile, not described at this site at this time
    Has subtype Motion JPEG 2000 Motion Picture Archive Access Format Profile, not described at this site at this time

Local use Explanation of format description terms

LC experience or existing holdings None
LC preference For preservation reformatting, the Library of Congress' Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation has chosen MXF_OP1a_JP2_LL (lossless JPEG 2000 wrapped in MXF operational pattern 1a).

Sustainability factors Explanation of format description terms

Disclosure Open standard. Developed jointly by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), a working groups within the ISO/IEC committee structure formally known as ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29.
    Documentation ISO/IEC 15444-3:2007. Information technology -- JPEG 2000 image coding system: Motion JPEG 2000. Also ISO/IEC 15444-3:2007, Amendment 1 (2010): Additional profiles for archiving applications.
Adoption No adoption by broadcasters or other media-industry professionals known to the compiler of this description; comments welcome. There are, however, in Chapter 6 of Using IDL, from software vendor ITT Visual Information Solutions, instructions for the creation of Motion JPEG 2000 animations using the IDL programming language (used primarily for scientific visualization).
    Licensing and patents Annex H of the standard reports that "compliance with this document may involve the use of a patent concerning JPEG 2000," "the holder of this patent right . . . is willing to negotiate licences under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms." The patent holder is identified as Sony Corporation. For additional information, see also ISO_BMFF.
Transparency Depends upon tools to read; will require sophistication to build tools.
Self-documentation The structure includes boxes and headers that contain the technical metadata needed to manage the media streams. There are many types of boxes and headers, including this example : "Motion JPEG 2000 video is stored in tracks . . . the exact format of the video is declared by the sample description." Sample descriptions are the topic of section 6.1 of the standard.
External dependencies None.
Technical protection considerations See ISO_BMFF.

Quality and functionality factors Explanation of format description terms

Moving Image
Normal rendering Good support. The format supports timescales that manage the playout of time-based media streams.
Clarity (high image resolution) Excellent potential; the outcome will depend on the type and extent of compression, and the encoder used.
Functionality beyond normal rendering The specification discusses features like composition (the mixing or matrixing of tracks), random access, and fragmented movie files. Options for 3D picture data not investigated for this description.
Sound
Normal rendering Good support.
Fidelity (high audio resolution) Excellent; the format supports LPCM encoding (as "raw" or "twos-complement" data) with no stated limit on sampling or bit depth. The simple profile, however, is limited to a single audio track, not to exceed 48 kHz and 16 bits. The format also supports tracks using any encoding specified in MPEG-4; for information, see MP4_FF_2.
Multiple channels The support for multiple tracks permits the use of multiple audio streams and/or individual streams encoded in structures like 5.1 (e.g., AAC_MP4 from the MPEG-4 family).
Support for user-defined sounds, samples, and patches Not investigated for this description.
Functionality beyond normal rendering See beyond-normal-rendering note in the video section above.

File type signifiers and format identifiers Explanation of format description terms

Tag Value Note
Filename extension mj2
mjp2
From the specification; mj2 is preferred.
Internet Media Type video/mj2
From https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3745.txt
Magic numbers 12 byte string: X'0000 000C 6A50 2020 0D0A 870A'
"For all JPEG-2000 family files," from https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3745.txt
File type brand (ISO Base Media File Format) mjp2
In the ISO_BMFF file type box, "indicates unrestricted conformance to this specification," from Annex A of the specification.
File type brand (ISO Base Media File Format) mj2s
In the ISO_BMFF file type box, "indicates indicates the simple Motion JPEG2000 profile," from Annex A of the specification.
File type brand (ISO Base Media File Format) mpap
From amendment 1, brand for the Motion JPEG 2000 Motion Picture Archive Preservation Format.
File type brand (ISO Base Media File Format) mpaa
From amendment 1, brand for the Motion JPEG 2000 Motion Picture Archive Access Format.
Pronom PUID fmt/337
See http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/fmt/337.
Wikidata Title ID Q3273017
See https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3273017.

Notes Explanation of format description terms

General

An early expression of the connection between MJ2_FF and digital cinema is provided by Siegfried Foessel's 2002 slide show Motion JPEG2000 and Digital Cinema (link available through Internet Archive). In 2005, Glenn Pearson, associated with the National Library of Medicine, organized a symposium (link available through Internet Archive) on Motion JPEG 2000 and its relevance to video reformatting (generally understood as having analog videotapes as a source); in the same year, Pearson and Michael Gill co-published an analytic paper (link available through Internet Archive) on the format.

The Motion JPEG 200 Simple Profile includes the following elements:

  • Exactly one video track is present.
  • At most a single audio track, using only 8 or 16-bit raw audio, is present.
  • Each track shall have exactly one sample description, used by all samples.
  • The sample rate of the audio, if present, shall not exceed 48 kHz.
  • The frame rate of the video shall not exceed 30 frames per second.
  • The video codestream profile shall be profile O for both the motion sequence and the still image, if present.
  • The file is self-contained; no data references are used, and therefore all media data is contained within the single file.
  • The media data in the Media Data Box(es) is placed within the box(es) in temporal order.
  • If more than one track is present, the media data for the tracks is interleaved, with a granularity no greater than the greater of (a) the duration of a single 'sample' (in file format terms) or (b) one second.
  • The transformation matrices used are restricted to uniform scaling and rotation by multiples of 90 degrees.
History The underlying ISO_BMCC format and this subtype owe a strong debt to Apple's QuickTime.

Format specifications Explanation of format description terms


Useful references

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Last Updated: 08/04/2021