Cliff Wootton
From Sprockets and Rasters to Macroblocks
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| A Practical Guide To Video And Audio Compression |
When you write a book a book like this, it is the sum of so many people’s efforts and goodwill.
I would like to especially thank “J and Lo” (Joanne Tracey and Lothlórien Homet) of
Focal Press for guiding me through the process of writing this book. Thanks to Gina Marzilli,
who guided us down the right path on the administrative side. The manuscript was skillfully
progressed through the production process by Becky Golden-Harrell—thanks, Becky.
Let’s do it again. Copyediting was ably managed by Cara Salvatore, Sheryl Avruch, and
their team of experts. Thanks guys; you really turned this into a silk purse for me.
Of course, without the products in the marketplace, we’d have very little success
with our endeavors. I’d like to send warm thanks to the team at Popwire in Sweden.
Anders Norström and Kay Johansson have been immensely helpful. Over the last couple
of years I’ve enjoyed getting to know members of the QuickTime team at Apple Computer.
Thanks to Dave Singer, Rhondda Stratton, Tim Schaaf, Vince Uttley, and Greg Wallace for
their help and inspiration. Guys, you are doing wonderful stuff. Just keep on doing that
thing that you do. Also at Apple, I’d like to thank Sal Soghoian for pointing out some
really cool stuff that AppleScript does. Thanks go to Envivio for some very thoughtprovoking
and inspiring conversations, especially the time I’ve spent with Rudi Polednik,
Frank Patterson, and Sami Asfour. Greetings also to Diana Johnson, Dave Kizerian, and
Matt Cupal of Sorenson and Annie Normandin of Discreet. Thanks for being there when
I needed your help. In the latter stages of completeing the book, Janet Swift and Barbara
Dehart at Telestream came through with some coolness that enabled me to make Windows
Media files effortlessly on a Mac.
To the people who work so hard at the MPEGIF (formerly known as the M4IF), Rob
Koenen, Sebastian Möritz, and your team, I thank you for your time and patience explaining
things to me. I hope this is a journey we can travel together for many years yet as we
see the new MPEG standards being widely adopted.
I have so many friends from my time at the BBC who unselfishly shared their expertise
and knowledge. Foremost of these must be Russell Merryman, who produced the elephant
cartoon and was also responsible—with Asha Oberoi, Robert Freeman, Saz Vora,
and John Nicholas—for the MPEG-4 packaged multimedia concept studies way back in
2002. Thanks also to Julie Lamm, John Angeli, and everyone in the News Interactivedepartment.
Thanks are due also to those individuals, companies, and organizations who graciously
permitted me to use their images in this project or spent time talking to me about
their work: Christopher Barnatt from the University of Nottingham; Simon Speight and
Mark Sherwood from Gerry Anderson Productions; Guan at Etiumsoft; Jim Cooper at
MOTU; David Carew-Jones, Anna Davidson, and Paul Dubery at Tektronix; Diogo Salari
at DPI Productions; the folks at M-Audio; the Sales Web team at Apple Computer; Grant
Petty and Simon Hollingworth at Black Magic Design; Julie Aguilar of ADC
Telecommunications; Victoria Battison of AJA Video Systems;
and Amanda Duffield of Pace Micro Technology.
I’d also like to thank Ben Waggoner for his unselfish sharing of many Master
Compressionist’s secrets at conferences. Ben, I’ve learned many new things from you
whenever I’ve been at your presentations. Thank you so much for encouraging people the way you do.
Preface
The last few years have been an extraordinary time for the digital video industry. Not long
before the turn of the millennium, digital video editing systems were expensive capital
items of equipment that only major broadcasters and production companies could afford.
To think that now the same capability is available in a laptop that you can buy off the shelf
and it comes with the software for something in the region of $1200 is amazing. This is a
capability we have dreamed about having on our desktops for 15 years. The price of the
hardware and software needed to run an entire TV broadcast service is now within the
reach of any organization or individual who cares to get involved.
Recall the boom in publishing that happened when the Apple LaserWriter was
launched with Adobe PostScript contained inside and those early page composition programs
enhanced what we were able to do with Word version 1 or MacWrite. We are now
at that place with digital media and while some people will create an unattractive mess
with these powerful tools, they will also enjoy themselves immensely and learn a lot at the
same time. Eventually, a few skilled people will emerge from the pack and this is where
the next generation of new talent will come from to drive the TV and film industry forward
over the next couple of decades.
When Joanne Tracey asked me to prepare a proposal for this book I realized (as had
most authors I have spoken to) that I didn’t know as much about the topic I was about to
write on as I thought I did. So this book has been a journey of exploration and discovery
for me, just as I hope it will be for you. And yet, we also don’t realize how much we do
already know, and I hope you will find yourself nodding and making a mental comment
to yourself saying “Yes—I knew that” as you read on.
We excel through the efforts of those around us in our day-to-day interactions with
them. I have been particularly lucky to enjoy a few truly inspirational years with a group
of like-minded people at the BBC. We all shared the same inquisitive approach into how
interactive TV news could work. Now that we have all gone our separate ways I miss
those “water cooler moments” when we came up with amazingly ambitious ideas. Some
of those ideas live on in the things we engineered and rolled out. Others are yet to develop
into a tangible form. But they will, as we adopt and implement the new MPEG-4, 7, and
21 technologies.
We are still at a very exciting time in the digital video industry. The H.264 codec is
achieving enormous potential and there is much yet to do in order to make it as successful
as it could be. Looking beyond that is the possibility of creating HDTV services and
interactive multimedia experiences that we could only dream about until now.
Video compression can be a heavy topic at the best of times and we cover a lot of
ground here. I thought the idea of illustrating the concept with a cartoon (see the first illustration
in Chapter 1) would be helpful, because this subject can be quite daunting and
I have purposely tried not to take it all too seriously. The cartoon is in order to disarm the
subject and make it as accessible as possible to readers who haven’t had the benefit of
much experience with compression.
In some chapters you’ll find a gray box with an icon on the left and a briefly encapsulated
hot tip. These have been placed so that they are relevant to the topic areas being
discussed but also to help you flick through the book and glean some useful knowledge
very quickly. They have come out of some of those brainstorming times when I discussed
digital video with colleagues in the various places I work and in online discussions. It’s a
bit of homespun wisdom based on the experiences of many people and intended to lighten
the tone of the book a little.
If you are wondering about the face on the cover, it is my daughter Lydia. But if you
look more closely at the cover, it tells a story. In fact, it is an attempt to show what the book
is all about in one snapshot.
On the left you’ll see the sprocket holes from film. Then in the background some faint
raster lines should be evident. As you traverse to the right, the detail in the face becomes
compressed. This illustrates how an image becomes degraded and finally degenerates into
small macroblock particles that waft away in the breeze. Coming up with these illustrative
ideas is one of the most enjoyable parts of writing a book.
So there you have it. I’ve enjoyed working on this project more than any other book
that I can recall being involved with. I hope you enjoy the book too and find it helpful, as
you become a more experienced compressionist.
In closing I’d like to say that the finer points of this publication are due to the
extremely hard work by the team at Focal Press and any shortcomings you find are entirely my fault.
Cliff Wootton
Crowborough, South East England
Screenshot
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Product details
Price
|
|
|---|---|
File Size
| 10,422 KB |
Pages
|
801 p |
File Type
|
PDF format |
ISBN
| 0-240-80630-1 |
Copyright
| 2005, Elsevier Inc |
Table of Contents
Preface, ix
Acknowledgments, xi
Chapter 1. Introduction to Video Compression, 1
Chapter 2. Why Video Compression Is Needed, 15
Chapter 3. What Are We Trying to Compress? 35
Chapter 4. Film, 43
Chapter 5. Video, 77
Chapter 6. Digital Image Formats, 115
Chapter 7. Matters Concerning Audio, 147
Chapter 8. Choosing the Right Codec, 171
Chapter 9. How Encoders Work, 187
Chapter 10. The MPEG-1 Codec, 195
Chapter 11. The MPEG-2 Codec, 217
Chapter 12. The MPEG-4 Part 2 Codec, 227
Chapter 13. The H.264 Codec, 237
Chapter 14. Encoded Output Delivered as a Bit Stream, 251
Chapter 15. Live Encoding, 265
Chapter 16. Files and Storage Formats, 277
Chapter 17. Tape Formats, 301
Chapter 18. Commercial Issues, Digital Rights Management, and Licensing, 307
Chapter 19. Network Delivery Mechanisms, 333
Chapter 20. Streaming, 345
Chapter 21. Players and Platforms, 363
Chapter 22. Windows Media, 373
Chapter 23. QuickTime, 383
Chapter 24. Real Networks, 397
Chapter 25. Other Player Alternatives, 407
Chapter 26. Putting Video on the Web, 415
Chapter 27. Digital Television, 427
Chapter 28. Digital Video on the Move, 439
Chapter 29. Building Your Encoding Hardware, 445
Chapter 30. Setting Up Your Encoding Software, 483
Chapter 31. Preparing to Encode Your Video, 521
Chapter 32. Ingesting Your Source Content, 529
Chapter 33. Temporal Preprocessing, 537
Chapter 34. Spatial Preprocessing, 549
Chapter 35. Color Correction, 567
Chapter 36. Cutting Out the Noise, 581
Chapter 37. Preparing the Audio for Encoding, 599
Chapter 38. Encoding—Go for It!, 611
Chapter 39. Where Shall We Go Next? 619
Appendix A Problem Solver, 639
Appendix B Hardware Suppliers, 645
Appendix C Software Suppliers, 651
Appendix D Film Stock Sizes, 657
Appendix E Video Raster Sizes, 659
Appendix F MPEG-2 Profiles and Levels, 661
Appendix G MPEG-4 Profiles and Levels, 665
Appendix H ISMA Profiles, 677
Appendix I File Types, 681
Appendix J Source-Video Formats, 693
Appendix K Source-Audio Formats, 695
Appendix L Formats Versus Players, 699
Appendix M Connectors, 703
Appendix N Important Standards and Professional Associations, 717
Glossary, 719
Bibliography, 743
Webliography, 745
Index, 765
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