ISO/IEC 14496-15:2010 defines a storage format for video streams compressed using any of the coding standards defined in ISO/IEC 14496-10 (Advanced Video Coding), including not only the AVC video format, but also Scalable Video Coding (SVC) and Multiview Video Coding (MVC), in order to enable the best visibility of, and access to, the advanced features of the video coding standard, and to enhance the opportunities for the interchange and interoperability of media.

ISO/IEC 14496-15:2010 specifies how these video streams are stored in file formats derived from ISO/IEC 14496-12 & 15444-12 (The ISO base media file format). As a consequence, it therefore defines how AVC streams are stored in ISO/IEC 14496-14 (the MP4 file format).

ISO/IEC 14496-15:2010 can be used as a stand-alone specification, but it is normally expected that it will be used in the context of other standards using both the ISO Base Media File Format and AVC. ISO/IEC 14496-15:2010 enables but does not require the use of MPEG-4 systems structures.

Substantial support for the scalability and multiview coding in the file format enables identification, selection, and extraction of scalable layers or views, without scanning the entire video stream. AVC compatibility may be maintained, and streams with expected subsets of the scalable layers, or views, can be pre-computed and stored efficiently.

ISO/IEC 14496-15:2010 enables AVC, SVC and MVC video streams to:

• be used in conjunction with other media streams, such as audio,
• be formatted for delivery by a streaming server, using hint tracks, and
• inherit all the use cases and features of the ISO base media file.