MPEG

Stands for "Moving Picture Experts Group." The MPEG organization, which works with the International Oganization for Standardization (ISO), develops standards for digital audio and video compression. The group constantly works to develop more efficient ways to digitally compress and store audio and video files. The term also refers to an actual type of multimedia file. (After all, these guys deserve some credit for what they do...) MPEG files, which typically end with ".mpg" or ".mpeg", are compressed movies that can contain both audio and video. Though they are compressed, they still maintain a high amount of quality from the original, uncompressed movie. This is why so many videos on the web use the MPEG format.