Standards

Standards are necessary for devices to interoperate and for coded video to be correctly decoded.

Pixel Rates

Video processors are limited in performance either by their internal data processing capabilities or their bandwidth to off-chip memory. For any video coding standard, these limitations restrict a processor to a maximum number of macroblocks processed per second for a theoretical worst-case data input. Since the definition of a macroblock varies between video coding standards, I prefer to measure processor performance in units of pixels per second rather than macroblocks per second. This is done with the understanding that video processors work on full blocks or full macroblocks at a time.

The following table shows the pixel rate required to process certain commercially interesting video application standards.

Application	Maximum Resolution	Maximum Frame Rate	Maximum Pixel Rate Required
HDTV (as defined by the ATSC) also Blu-Ray and HD-DVD	1920x1080 (at 30 frames per second or 60 interlaced fields per second)	60 frames per second (at 720x1280 resolution)	62.2M
SDTV	704x480	60 frames per second	20.3M
D1	720x576 (at 25 frames per second)	30 frames per second (at 720x480)	10.4M
DVD	720x480	30 frames per second or 60 interlaced fields per second)	10.4M
CIF	352x288	no standard frame rate	3.1M (at 30 frames per second)

Video Bitrate Limits (Maximums) Table

Format	Maximum bitrate limit	Notes
DVD	9800 kbps (video & audio)
miniDVD	6000 kbps
SVCD	2600 kbps (video & audio)
VCD	1150 kbps video & 224 kbps audio
DVB-S	4500 kbps video & audio	channel data ranges from about 1100 kbps up to 4200 kbps
DVB-T	5530 kbps video & audio mode and 8000 kbps video & audio mode

A Guide to Video Standards, published by SBS Technologies, has a nice summary of video transmission and compression standards.

Standard Bodies

MPEG Industry Forum
International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
AVS Audio Video coding Standard Workgroup of China
DVB
ATSC
Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI)
CMMB
- mobile TV spec
- uses AVS as the coding standard
The Khronos Group is an industry standards group that defines software programming APIs for multimedia creation and playback on a wide range of devices.

A table of terms and acronyms

The following table lists digital video markets, applications, device components, and standards.

markets:

mobile
- automobiles
- airplanes
- trains
- boats
hand held
- wireless phones
- PDAs
- digital still cameras
living room
- television sets
- video disk players
- cable broadcast receivers
- terrestrial broadcast receivers
- satellite broadcast receivers
- personal video recorders
camcorders
security cameras
military
movie / television production
PCs / internet
signs / billboards

recording devices

storage media / transmission

playback devices

applications:

security cameras
cell phones / PDAs
synthetic video (animation, CGI, 3D graphics)
personal video recorders
film -> video
camcorders
professional cameras
PC video capture cards

video disks
digital video tape
hard disk
terrestrial broadcast
satellite broadcast
cable broadcast
internet broadcast
video on demand

television sets
set-top box
PVR
security monitor
projectors
PCs
automotive / airplane entertainment systems
heads-up displays
movie theaters
signs / billboards

system components:

lens / optics	digitization source	processor
	image sensor: CCD CMOS image sensor tuner / demodulator	interlacing / deinterlacing RGB -> YCrCb scaling (upscaling / downscaling) compression motion estimation spatial-frequency domain transform coefficient reordering run length encoding variable-length (or arithmetic) coding bitstream muxing / bitstream generation modulation or interface coding

antennae
transformers
amplifiers / signal conditioners
polycarbonate
sprayed, sputtered, or spin-coated aluminum or reflectance changing chemicals
ferromagnetic materials
plastic substrates

tuner
demodulator
decoding
- DVI
- HDMI
- S-video
- composite video
processing
- stream demuxing / error correction
- codec decompression
  - variable-length (or arithmetic) decoding
  - motion compensation
  - run length decoding
  - coefficient reordering
  - frequency-spatial domain transform
- deblocking / deringing filter
- YCbCr -> RGB
- scaling (upscaling / downscaling)
- interlacing / deinterlacing
- text overlays
- picture in picture overlays
display control
- LCD
- plasma
- CRT
- DLP
- LCOS
illumination / backlighting source
- incandescent (projectors)
- florescent
- LEDs
projection lens
glass panel
white screen

standards:

"The great thing about standards is that there are so many."

scanning

NTSC
PAL
SECAM

compression

H.261
MPEG-1
MPEG-2 / H.262
VP3
H.263
MPEG-4
VP4
H.264 / MPEG-4 Part 10 / AVC
VP5
DivX
QuickTime
RealVideo
Windows Media Video
XviD
VP6
VP7

storage media

video disks:
- laser disks (analog video disks)
- DVD
- VCD
- EVD
- FVD
- HD-DVD
- Blu-Ray
Here is an interesting EDN article by Brian Dipert with a good summary of the problems with the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray video disc format war.
tape
- Digital 8
- MiniDV
hard disk drive
compact flash card
flash memory stick

short distance transmission (within a building)

HDMI
DVI
CCIR
S-Video (S-VHS)
component video
SCART
RF modulated

long distance broadcast / transmission

ATSC 8-VSB
DOCSIS
DVB-T
DVB-H
CDMB-T China DTV terrestrial broadcast standard to fixed devices using Shanghai Jiaotong University's VSB modulation scheme
CDMB-H China DTV broadcast standard to handheld devices using Beijing Tsinghua University's time-domain synchronous OFDM modulation scheme.
DirecTV
Dish Network