Sarnoff-led grou¥demonstrates digital-video bitstream splicing

An industry and government team headed by researchers from the David Sarnoff Research Center (Princeton, NJ) has seamlessly spliced compressed digital-video data bitstreams. The technique is

March 1, 1997

An industry and government team headed by researchers from the David Sarnoff Research Center (Princeton, NJ) has seamlessly spliced compressed digital-video data bitstreams. The technique is

crucial to the use of high-definition television (HDTV), expected to be available late in 1998. The

ten-company grou¥is cost sharing the effort with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Gaithersburg, MD) as part of the agency?s Advanced Technology Program.

In HDTV, the digital-data bitstream is compressed by 50:1 at a station and encoded for transmission. The stream is decoded and decompressed for display at the receiver. Without seamless splicing, editing or insertion would require decompression back at the station, necessitating more equipment and degrading data before transmission. The digital bitstream splicing unit was built by Philips Research (Briarcliff Manor, NY) as part of the three-year, $58 million program started in 1995.