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A bitstream format is the format of the data found in some stream of bits used in a digital communication or data storage application. The term typically refers to the format of the output of an encoder or the format of the input to a decoder when using data compression.
Standardized interoperability specifications such as the video coding standards produced by MPEG and the ITU-T and the audio coding standards produced by MPEG often specify only the bitstream format and the decoding process, while allowing individual encoder implementations to be designed using any methods whatsoever that produce bitstreams that conform to the specified bitstream format.
Decoding of a bitstream can be initiated without having to start from the beginning of a 'file' or the beginning of the data transmission. Bitstreams are designed for this to occur.
See also
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