CHAPTER 7 FOR PUB RELEAS Data Compression 7.1 Storage Space ‘Uncompressed graphics, audio, and video data require substantial storage eapac- ity, which is not possible in the case of uncompressed video data, even given today’s CD and DVD technology. The same is tue for multimedia communications. Data tans- fer of uncompressed video data over digital networks requires that very high bandwidth be provided for a single point-to-point communication. To be costeffeetive and fess bile, multimedia systems must use compressed video and audio streams. ‘Most compression methods address the same problems, one at a time or in comb nation, Most are already available as products, Others are currently under development or are only partially completed (see also [SP194). While fractal image compression [BH93] may be important in the future, the most important compression techniques in use today are JPEG [Org93, PM93, Wal9 I] for single pictures, H.263 (px@4) [Le 91, 180936] for video, MPEG [Lio 1, IT UC90] for video and audio, as well as proprictary techniques such as QuickTime from Apple and Video for Windows from Microsott In their daily work, developers and multimedia experts often need a good under- standing of the most popular techniques. Most of today’s literature, however, is either