By Carl Furgusson, TANDBERG Television
The use of Advanced Video Coding to enable bandwidth efficient HDTV Video on Demand and broadcast television is gaining in popularity as technological advancements in MPEG-2 compression continue to slow. While MPEG-2 has been the undisputed leader in video compression for the past decade, algorithms such as Windows Media 9 Video and MPEG-4 Part 10 are emerging at a time when consumers are requiring more broadcast channels and VOD services in HD.
As the subscriber volume grows, using MPEG-2 compression for HD will result in bandwidth bottlenecks in the networks. To solve this problem, increasingly efficient compression algorithms will be required to satisfy this consumer demand. Algorithms such as WM9V and MPEG-4 Part 10 have the potential to outperform MPEG-2 by up to 50%, meaning that a 50% data reduction to deliver the same quality picture is possible — taking full advantage of network bandwidth and increasing revenue generation possibilities. This paper will discuss advanced video coding techniques and how they apply to HD to enable bandwidth efficient deployment of HDTV for both broadcast television and VOD.