Digital Picture Compression and Coding Structure

Digital video service has become an integral part of entertainment, education, broadcasting, communication, and business arenas. Digital camcorders are more preferred than analog ones in the consumer market with their convenience and high quality. In fact, still image or moving video taken by digital cameras can be stored, displayed, edited, printed or transmitted via the Internet. Digital television provides strong affinities to the TV audience and is going to expel analog television receivers from the market. Digital video and image are simple alternative means of carrying the same information as their analog counterparts. An ideal analog recorder should exactly record the natural phenomena in the form of video, image or audio. An ideal digital recorder has to do the same work with a number of advantages such as interactivity, flexibility, and compressibility. Although, in the real situation, ideal conditions seldom prevail and may not be possible by means of both analog and digital techniques, digital compression is one of the techniques used to lower the cost for a video system while maintaining the same quality of service. Data compression is a process to yield a compact representation of a signal in the digital format.