Digital television: Transmission and coding

Digital television involves a wide range of coding requirements along the television chain, from picture source to home receiver. All parts of this chain are likely to become digital in some future. This paper concentrates on systems descriptions, state of the present developments of equipments, and state of the international discussions. The production and related activities are first considered (CCIR world standard, parallel and serial interfaces, digital video-tape recorder). Then, the structure of the television systems for mid and long-distance transmission links are presented. Complementing this system approach, we recall some general aspects related to television coding: specificity of television pictures and sequences, properties of the human visual system, aspects of optimization procedures. The results obtained for television signals by intraframe and interframe bit-rate reduction coding techniques are presented. The paper then considers the links of the television chain closer to the user: digital broadcasting and local distribution. The last part is devoted to some aspects of compatibility for coding and transmission standards taking into account their compatibility along the TV system chain and between alternative distribution situations or other picture services that will ultimately come to the user's TV set.