Software Motion Pictures

1 Abstract Software motion pictures is a method of generating digital video on general-purpose desktop computers without using special decompression hardware. The compression algorithm is designed for rapid decompression in software and generates deterministic data rates for use from CD-ROM and network connections. The decompression part offers device independence and integrates well with existing window systems and application programming interfaces. Software motion pictures features a portable, low-cost solution to digital video playback. 2 Introduction The necessary initial investment is one of the major obstacles in making video a generic data type, like graphics and text, in general-purpose computer systems. The ability to display video usually requires some combination of specialized frame buffer, decompression hardware, and a high-speed network. A software-only method of generating a video display provides an attractive way of solving the problems of cost and general access but poses challenging questions in terms of efficiency. Although several digital video standards either exist or have been proposed, their computational complexity exceeds the power of most current desktop systems.[1] In addition, a compression algorithm alone does not address the integration with existing window system hardware and software. Software motion pictures (SMP) is both a video compression algorithm and a complete software implementation of that algorithm. SMP was specifically designed to address all the issues concerning integration with desktop systems. A typical application of SMP on a low-end workstation is to play back color digital video at a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels with a coded data rate of 1.1 megabits per second. On a DECstation 5000 Model 240 HX workstation, this task uses less than 25 percent of the overall machine resources. Together with suitable audio support (audio support is beyond the scope of this paper), software motion pictures provides portable, low-cost digital video playback.