The Grand Alliance HDTV video encoder

Members of the digital high definition television (HDTV) Grand Alliance have jointly designed and constructed a high definition video encoder as part of an overall HDTV broadcast system. The encoder accepts video in either 1080 line (30 Hz) interlaced format or 720 line (60 Hz) progressive format, and produces a bitstream compliant with the Motion Picture Experts Group version 2 (MPEG-2) standard. The encoder processing includes large-area motion estimation, adaptive telecine processing, and an advanced rate control mechanism. The paper describes the hardware architecture and implementation trade-offs of this encoder.