ADVANCED CODING: TECHNOLOGY, SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS

The success of MPEG-2 has been remarkable since the first commercial launches of direct to home satellite systems in the mid-1990s. Globally, 800 satellite TV channels in 1994 has grown to over 9,000 today. A significant driver in this growth has been improved compression efficiency and that need to reduce bit rate continues today. However MPEG-2 can no longer maintain its year-on-year improvements and a new range of audio/video compression systems are coming to the fore to pursue bit rate reductions even further. This paper describes how these new Advanced Video Coding (AVC) techniques will improve efficiencies as well as pointing out some of the practical pitfalls. This paper briefly considers the system aspects of AVC solutions including a model of a typical head-end. A new range of applications are considered- enabled by video and audio bit rates far lower than current MPEG-2