A Practical Guide to Video and Audio Compression

Learn all about Codecs--how they work, as well as design and implementation with this comprehensive, easy-to-use guide to compression. After reading this book, you will be able to prepare and distribute professional audio and video on any platform including streamed to the web, broadcast on-air, stored in PVRs, Burned onto CD-ROMs or DVDs, delivered by broadband, or viewed in Kiosk applications, PDA devices, and mobile phones. Key benefits: * Learn from an award-winning technologist for a top media company who knows how to explain codecs in terms you can understand* This entry-level guide contains clear explanations and hundreds of diagrams--no math background needed! Also includes a comprehensive glossary which serves as a useful reference to many technical terms and jargon you will encounter * Learn how to choose the right technique to get the most out of your compression system--saving both storage space and money

Cliff Wootton was the technical systems architect in the BBC News Interactive TV group. This team pioneered the "News Loops" service, which was nominated for a BAFTA Technology award and has won a Royal Television Society Award for Technical Innovation. His current research projects are investigating new ways to build interactive content creation tools for the emerging IPTV platforms

Chapter 1: Introduction to video compression; Chapter 2: Why video compression is needed; Chapter 3: What are we trying to compress?; Chapter 4: Film; Chapter 5: Video; Chapter 6: Digital Image Formats; Chapter 7: Matters Concering Audio; Chapter 8: Choosing the right codec; Chapter 9: How encoders work; Chapter 10: The MPEG-1 codec; Chapter 11: The MPEG-2 Codec; Chapter 12: The MPEG-4 part 2 codec; Chapter 13: The H.264 codec; Chapter 14: Encoded output delivered as a bit stream; Chapter 15: Live Encoding; Chapter 16: Files and storage formats; Chapter 17: Tape formats; Chapter 18: Commercial issues, DRM and licensing; Chapter 19: Network delivery mechanisms; Chapter 20 Streaming; Chapter 21: Players and platforms; Chapter 22: Windows Media; chapter 23: QuickTime; Chapter 24: Real Networks; Chapter 25: Other player alternatives; Chapter 26: Putting video on the web; Chapter 27: Digital Television; Chapter 28: Digital video on the move; Chapter 29: Building your encoding hardware; Chapter 30: Setting up your encoding software; Chapter 31: Preparing to encode your video; Chapter 32: Ingesting your source content; Chapter 33: Temporal pre-processing; Chapter 34: Spatial pre-processing; Chapter 35: Colour correction; Chapter 36: Cutting out the noise; Chapter 37: Preparing the audio for encoding; Chapter 38: Encoding - Go for it!; Chapter 39: Where next?; Appendix A-M