Recent challenges in video coding and streaming

Abstract

Video streaming over the Internet has gained popularity during the recent years which is mainly the result of the introduction of video-conferencing and videotelephony. These in turn have made it possible to bring to life many applications such as transmitting video over the Internet and telephone lines, surveillance and monitoring, telemedicine (medical consultation and diagnosis at a distance), and computer based training and education. These applications need a large bandwidth which is not available in all cases. Many video encoding standards have been introduced to deal with video compression and transmission problems. In this study, we have discussed the main technical features of the most important video coding standards in a comparative approach. The appropriateness of these features is application and transmission environment dependant. Manipulating video stream features or video transcoding methods are discussed as well.