Scalability

Scalability is the ability of a decoder to decode an ordered set of bitstreams to produce a reconstructed sequence. Moreover, useful video is output when subsets are decoded. The minimum subset that can thus be decoded is the first bitstream in the set which is called the base layer. Each of the other bitstreams in the set is called an enhancement layer. When addressing a specific enhancement layer, lower layer refer to the bitstream which precedes the enhancement layer.

SECAM (Sequentiel Coleur A Memoire)

European video standard with image format 4:3, 625 lines, 50 Hz and 6 Mhz video bandwidth with a total 8 Mhz of video channel width.

Side information

Information in the bitstream necessary for controlling the decoder.

SIF (Standard Interchange format)

Format for exchanging video images of 240 lines with 352 pixels each for NTSC, and 288 lines by 352 pixels for PAL and SECAM. At the nominal field rates of 60 and 50 fields/s, the two formats have the same data rate.

Skipped macroblock

A macroblock for which no data is encoded.

Slice

A series of macroblocks.

SMPTE

SMPTE is the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. There is an SMPTE time code standard (hr:min:sec:frame) used to identify video frames.

SNA

Systems network Architecture entered the market in 1974 as a hierarchical, single-host network structure. Since then, SNA has developed steadily in two directions. The first direction involved tying together mainframes and unintelligent terminals in a master-to-slave relationship. The second direction transformed the SNA architecture to support a cooperative-processing environment, whereby remote terminals link up with mainframes as well as each other in a peer-to-peer relationship (termed Low Entry Networking (LEN) by IBM). LEN depends on the implementation of two protocols: Logical Unit 6.2, also known as APPC, and Physical Unit 2.1 which affords point-to-point connectivity between peer nodes without requiring host computer control.

The SNA model is concerned with both logical and physical units. Logical units (LUs) serve as points of access by which users can utilize the network. LUs can be viewed as terminals that provide users access to application programs and other services on the network. Physical units (PUs) like LUs are not defined within SNA architecture, but instead, are representations of the devices and communication links of the network.

SNR scalability

A type of scalability where the enhancement layer(s) contain only coded refinement data for the DCT coefficients of the base layer.

Spatial scalability

A type of scalability where an enhancement layer also uses predictions from pel data derived from a lower layer without using motion vectors. The layers can have different frame sizes, frame rates or chroma formats

Standard bodies

Any country have national standard body where experts from industry and universities develop standards for all kinds of engineering problems. Among them are, for instance,
     ANSI     American National Standards Institute       USA
     DIN      Deutsches Institut fuer Normung             Germany
     BSI      British Standards Institution               United Kingdom
     AFNOR    Association francaise de normalisation      France
     UNI      Ente Nazionale Italiano di Unificazione     Italy
     NNI      Nederlands Normalisatie-instituut           Netherlands
     SAA      Standards Australia                         Australia
     SANZ     Standards Association of New Zealand        New Zealand
     NSF      Norges Standardiseringsforbund              Norway
     DS       Dansk Standard                              Denmark
and about 80 others.

The International Organization for Standardization, ISO, in Geneva is the head organization of all these national standardization bodies. Together with the International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC, ISO concentrates its efforts on harmonizing national standards all over the world. The results of these activities are published as ISO standards. Among them are, for instance, the metric system of units, international stationery sizes, all kinds of bolt nuts, rules for technical drawings, electrical connectors, security regulations, computer protocols, file formats, bicycle components, ID cards, programming languages, International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN). Over 10,000 ISO standards have been published so far and you surely get in contact with a lot of things each day that conform to ISO standards you never heard of. By the way, ISO is not an acronym for the organization in any language. It's a wordplay based on the English/French initials and the Greek-derived prefix iso- meaning same.

Within ISO, ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) deals with information technology.

The International Telecommunication Union, ITU, is the United Nations specialized agency dealing with telecommunications. At present there are 164 member countries. One of its bodies is the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee, CCITT. A Plenary Assembly of the CCITT, which takes place every few years, draws up a list of 'Questions' about possible improvements in international electronic communication. In Study Groups, experts from different countries develop 'Recommendations' which are published after they have been adopted. Especially relevant to computing are the V series of recommendations on modems (e.g. V.32, V.42), the X series on data networks and OSI (e.g. X.25, X.400), the I and Q series that define ISDN, the Z series that defines specification and programming languages (SDL, CHILL), the T series on text communication (teletext, fax, videotext, ODA) and the H series on digital sound and video encoding.

Since 1961, the European Computer Manufacturers Association, ECMA, has been a forum for data processing experts where agreements have been prepared and submitted for standardization to ISO, CCITT and other standards organizations.

Start codes [system and video]

32-bit codes embedded in that coded bitstream that are unique. They are used for several purposes including identifying some of the structures in the coding syntax.

Stuffing (bits); stuffing (bytes)

Code-words that may be inserted into the compressed bitstream that are discarded in the decoding process. Their purpose is to increase the bitrate of the stream.

Sub band coding

Sub-band coding for images has roots in work done in the 1950s by Bedford and on Mixed Highs image compression done by Kretzmer in 1954. Schreiber and Buckley explored general two channel coding of still pictures where the low spatial frequency channel was coarsely sampled and finely quantized and the high spatial frequency channel was finely sampled and coarsely quantized. More recently, Karlsson and Vetterli have extended this to multiple subbands. Adelson et al. have shown how a recursive subdivision called a pyramid decomposition can be used both for compression and other useful image processing tasks.

A pure sub-band coder performs a set of filtering operations on an image to divide it into spectral components. Usually, the result of the analysis phase is a set of sub-images, each of which represents some region in spatial or spatio-temporal frequency space. For example, in a still image, there might be a small sub-image that represents the low-frequency components of the input picture that is directly viewable as either a minified or blurred copy of the original. To this are added successively higher spectral bands that contain the edge information necessary to reproduce the original sharpness of the original at successively larger scales. As with DCT coder, to which it is related, much of the image energy is concentrated in the lowest frequency band.

For equal visual quality, each band need not be represented with the same signal-to-noise ratio; this is the basis for sub-band coder compression. In many coders, some bands are eliminated entirely, and others are often compressed with a vector or lattice quantizer. Succeedingly higher frequency bands are more coarsely quantized, analogous to the truncation of the high frequency coefficients of the DCT. A sub-band decomposition can be the intraframe coder in a predictive loop, thus minimizing the basic distinctions between DCT-based hybrid coders and their alternatives.

S-Video

S-Video is the standard for the way a signal is carried on the cable itself. The industry has settled on a 4-pin mini plug connector. S-Video does not have any relation to the resolution or refresh rate of the signal.

Do not confuse S-Video with S-VHS. S-VHS is a tape/signal standard. S-Video is a hardware standard that defines the physical cable jacks.

S-Video allows you to bypass the comb filter in a device. Generally, less processing of the signal results in a better picture. The comb filter separates the chroma (color) and luma (brightness) components of a video signal into separate parts.

This is also called Y/C, where Y represents brightness and C color.

When color and brightness are not separated, when they are combined in the signal, it is called a composite signal. S-Video cables have separate wires for the color and brightness. That is, they carry a Y/C signal.

The best picture comes when the color and brightness is separate from the source. VCRs record this way, and DSS broadcasts this way too. Laserdiscs store a composite picture rather than Y/C separated.

Even when the signals have been combined at some point on their way to the monitor, different comb filters perform to different degrees of quality, so one can pick how to connect one's components to try to use the best comb filter.

Some older sets with S-Video input jacks may actually combine the Y/C in a crude way, making the S-Video input no better than a typical composite signal. Newer sets probably do not do this anymore.