SBIR-STTR Award

Transmitting voluminous image/video signals over channels orders of magnitude lower in data rate thus requires the latest advances in compression technology as a fundamental enabler. This is especially true for video communications over wireless links that often support data rates as low as 16 kbps - one needs more than 50,000:1 compression! For space considerations, we focus mainly on the video compression problem herein, as it is the most daunting. In our experience, no proprietary solution is competitive with the latest standards technology, H.264, in scientific evaluations. It is also desirable to use standards-based solutions due to the vital interoperability issues, as well as the availability of low-cost, reliable COTS components.

Video data compression is a powerful enabling technology for surveillance applications. It permits the transmission of high data-volume video surveillance data in real-time or near real-time, by encoding the data in an efficient compressed format, to be reconstructed at the receiver. We use the latest generation ITU/ISO H.264/AVC standard to achieve unprecendented rates of compression, while providing image qualities previously unavailable

Keywords:
video compression, standards, H.264, surveillance, data transmission