What is "mpeg-2"

MPEG-2 (aka H.222/H.262 as defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and ISO/IEC 13818 MPEG-2 at the ISO Store. It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods, which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission bandwidth. While MPEG-2 is not as efficient as newer standards such as H.264 and H.265/HEVC, backwards compatibility with existing hardware and software means it is still widely used, for example in over-the-air digital television broadcasting and in the DVD-Video standard.