INTRODUCTION
The project, as the title suggests, is based on video and image transmission and involves looking into the key issues and related topics which play a major part.
First of all, all video files have some format (extension such as .mpg etc...) and there are many which exist. Amongst the list are (.mpg) MPEG, (.avi) AUDIO VIDEO INTERLEAVE and (.mov) QUICKTIME. Although MPEG promises best quality along with video capture at greater resolutions and better compression, AVI and MOV formats are still very popular thanks to the Internet.
The Internet is now used world wide and is a good source for advertising and selling. Businesses whether large or small mainly use AVI and MOV formats as extension to their advertisement videos which if seen in a small screen (360x240 approx) can still be very effective, as long as the message is clear. This way, cheaper advertising is accomplished.
MPEG is mainly used for larger more advanced projects such as movies and animation's etc. MPEG does produce good quality but it has been a long while now, and many other advanced technologies have emerged. Now, MPEG IV even exists which promises even better results.
Nevertheless, the AVI format by far is the most popular and the majority of downloadable video on the Internet has an AVI format since the person(s) allowing the video to download wants to make sure that the purchaser definitely sees it because every PC computer has a video player called 'Active Movie Control' provided by Microsoft for Windows 95 & 98 and IT accepts AVI video, and not everyone has access to software capable of playing MOV or MPEG files therefore AVI is more flexible.
The AVI format video can be compressed using various codecs (Compressors/Decompressors) which are provided by Microsoft on Active Movie Control software. Four of these codecs that are mainly used are analysed to see which performs better and which is best at what for example, Storage, Quality of video, Compression Time and Data-Rates. It is not wrong to say however that new techniques are emerging or have already emerged but for now, the current methods can at least be looked at to see how good or bad they are.
New techniques
have already been developed in the outside world which promise to bring
improvements enabling better compression with very little loss in video
quality hence saving storage space. These new methods also show ways to
increase the compression/decompression speed which has already been achieved,
where video has been tested on the slowest and faster machines.
AIMS
AND OBJECTIVES
The main aims and objectives are summarised
below in points which are essential to consider to fulfill the requirements
of this project.
- TO GATHER BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON RELEVANT ISSUES SUCH AS VIDEO STREAMING, VIDEO FORMATS, VIDEO RESOLUTIONS, PARAMETERS FOR MEASURING or COMPARING such as 'PIXELS' FOR QUALITY etc, FRAMES and so on.
- TO RESEARCH ON VIDEO FILE FORMATS THAT EXIST AND SELECT ONE FOR FURTHER ANALYSIS. (MPEG, AVI or MOV)
- TO CREATE A SELF-CAPTURED VIDEO OF DURATION 6SECS (APPROX) AT VARIOUS COMPRESSION RATIOS OF THE SELECTED FORMAT (MPEG, AVI or MOV).
- TO COMPRESS THE ORIGINAL VIDEO FILE USING THE VARIOUS CODECS AVAILABLE AND THEN TO COMPARE EACH CODEC BY OBSERVING THE IMAGE QUALITY, STORAGE(how far the file can be compressed to) DATA-RATE and COMPRESSION TIME TAKEN of EACH VIDEO FILE.
- TO OBTAIN A MEAN-OPINION -SCORE BY SHOWING THE VIDEO TO A GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO CAN RATE THE QUALITY USING A SUITABLE KEY. THE 'AVERAGE' or 'MEAN' SCORE FOR EACH VIDEO SAMPLE CAN BE RECORDED.
- TO RESEARCH ON NEW METHODS WHICH CAN HELP TO ACHIEVE HIGHER COMPRESSION RATIOS AND SAVE STORAGE SPACE WHILE ACHIEVING ALSO GOOD QUALITY AND INCREASED COMPRESSION/DECOMPRESSION SPEED.
OVERALL
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
After conducting experiments and calculating
the necessary components, some conclusions were made and results recorded
in a graphical/textual manner. The video files generated at various compression
ratios can be viewed through the link below named "VIDEO-SAMPLES"
and the results and conclusions can be viewed through the link "END-RESULTS".
New research information gathered with experimental results can
also be viewed along with useful sites which can be visited.
