Image Processing Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 39-1 Compression-Related Technology Timeline (Continued)
Year
Milestone
Somewhere around this time, we might hope that achievable delivery bit rates
will have reduced to 50% of what they are now as a result of the H.264 encoder
evolution.
2010
There is a potential for HDTV to become a mass-market phenomenon in Europe as
early as this. The 1080p50 bit rates and decoding become feasible given hardware
improvements. Early adopters will have been using HDTV for a while; now a lot
more high-end users will start to buy equipment.
TV-Anytime predict that $100 will purchase sufficient disk space to store 14
thousand hours of video.
2012
Current speculation is that HDTV goes mainstream in Europe by now and is
available to all consumers at affordable prices.
The Office of Communications defines the end of 2012 as the complete closedown
of analog TV in the United Kingdom.
2013
Predictions of 130 million pay TV homes.
Getting the best out of compression systems is not just a question of flipping a cou-
ple of switches. There is far more to it than that. Even with the most sophisticated coding
tools it is still important to keep a human being in the loop.
The H.264 codec is going to exercise our developers as they create better encoders for
it and that is not the end of the story. In 2003, commentators were reluctant to take H.264
seriously. In 2004, it became a proven codec and started to become widely adopted but few
products shipped. In 2005, the market for H.264 software is set to explode with many com-
panies offering coding and playback support right across the board.
MPEG-7 and MPEG-21 work is underway; scalable video coding and H.265 are
being talked about if not yet started as works in progress. There is much still to do and
more journeys yet to undertake.
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