Digital Video and HDTV

Algorithms and Interfaces

by Charles Poynton,
(San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2003)
[hardcover, 736 pages, USD 59.94].
available from the publisher, online retailers, and bookstores.

Placing video in the context of computing

Rapidly evolving computer and communications technologies have achieved data transmission rates and data storage capacities high enough for digital video. But video involves much more than just pushing bits! Achieving the best possible image quality, accurate color, and smooth motion requires understanding many aspects of image acquisition, coding, processing, and display that are outside the usual realm of computer graphics. At the same time, video system designers are facing new demands to interface with film and computer system that require techniques outside conventional video engineering.

Charles Poynton's 1996 book A Technical Introduction to Digital Video became an industry favorite for its succinct, accurate, and accessible treatment of standard definition television (SDTV). In Digital Video and HDTV, Poynton covers not only SDTV, but also high definition television (HDTV) and compression systems. With the help of hundreds of high quality technical illustrations, this book presents the following topics:

• Basic concepts of digitization, sampling, quantization, gamma, and filtering
• Principles of color science as applied to image capture and display
• Scanning and coding of SDTV and HDTV
• Video color coding: luma, chroma (4:2:2 component video, 4f_SC composite video)
• Analog NTSC and PAL
• Studio systems and interfaces
• Compression technology, including M-JPEG and MPEG-2
• Broadcast standards and consumer video equipment

CHARLES POYNTON is an independent contractor specializing in the physics, mathematics, and engineering of digital color imaging systems, including digital video, HDTV, and digital cinema (D-cinema). He designed and built the digital video equipment used at NASA to convert video from the Space Shuttle into NTSC, initiated Sun Microsystems' HDTV research project in the early 1990s, and has taught many popular courses on HDTV and video technologies. A Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Poynton was awarded the Society's prestigious David Sarnoff Gold Medal for his work to integrate video technology with computing and communications.

The Table of Contents is available. Errata are available.

Sample chapters will soon be available here.

You can order from the publisher, or Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.