Video compression's quantum leap

摘要

As VIDEO GOES DIGITAL, content producers, dis-tributors, and users are all demanding ever-higher quality and ever-larger display screens - in other words, more megapixels per second. Consider a typical TV-broadcast video stream char-acterized by 24-bit color and 720×480-pixel reso-lution refreshing at 30 frames/sec. Uncompressed, it would require a bandwidth of greater than 248 Mbps. High-definition TV requires five times the bandwidth of standard-definition TV. Because the carrying capacity of most communication channels cannot keep up with pixel demand, video compres-sion has been the only option, particularly in the high-definition era.