Audio and Video codecs (coder/decoder) have always attracted research activity from
academia and the industry. These activities are driven by simple economics: better
compression means smaller storage and less bandwidth; technical breakthroughs in
encoding techniques are enablers of new applications that in turn push new products into
the hands of consumers.
For the foreseeable future, moving pictures or Video will always have a significant place
in personal entertainment devices - at all layers through the product chain. Furthermore,
the major electronics companies will continue to invest in these products and the R&D
required to create new products will continue vigorously in the future.
Today, we can view attempts to enable video devices with flash memory and High
Definition, or more hours of content with standard DVD media, as further proof that
attempts to squeeze more video quality out of fewer bits is still proceeding aggressively.
Even as the price of storage media decreases, it is clear that an average video enthusiast’s
home archive is still much higher than commonly available portable flash media today.