A group of standards for encoding and compressing audiovisual information such as movies, video, and music. MPEG is asymmetric in nature, as the compression process is time consuming and processor-intensive, whereas the decompression process is rapid and involves relatively inexpensive equipment. MPEG compression is as high as 200:1 for low-motion video of VHSquality, and broadcast quality can be achieved at 6 Mbps. Audio is supported at rates from 32 kbps to 384 kbps for up to two stereo channels. MPEG specifies lossy compression in the form of discrete cosine transform (DCT). MPEG is a joint technical committee of the International Standards Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). See also asymmetric, broadcast quality, compression, DCT, encode, IEC, ISO, and lossy compression.