Video Communication Networks

In this presentation, a broad overview of video communication networks is provided. Numerous video communication applications are currently being developed including digital television, video streaming, video-on-demand, and video conferencing. Efficient storage and communication requires video data to be represented in compressed form. Various video compression standards have been developed by industrial organizations. However, among them the MPEG-2 compression standard still remains the most popular. It is currently the most powerful compression scheme for high-quality data representation and has been adopted by HDTV and DVD. For simplicity, this presentation will focus primarily on the MPEG-2 video compression standard. The basic techniques used for video communication are illustrated over a variety of communication networks: Hybrid Fiber-Coax, Digital Subscriber Loop, Wireless, Fiber Optics, Integrated Services Digital Network, ATM, and Internet Protocol networks. The quality of video communications, especially over the Internet, is of critical concern for practical applications. Numerous protocols designed to allow users to enhance the quality-of-service of video transmission over communication networks have been proposed. Several of these protocols are described including MBONE, Real-Time Transport Protocol, Real-Time Transport Control Protocol, Real-Time Streaming Protocol, Session Initiation Protocol, Resource Reservation Protocol, and DiffServ Protocol.