VIDEO COMPRESSION FOR THE GRAND ALLIANCE - A HISTORICAL-PERSPECTIVE

This article outlines the evolution of the Grand Alliance (GA) high-de finition television (HDTV) standard from its divided beginnings among several systems to its final state as the proposed standard for HDTV t ransmission in the United States today. Earlier video compression stan dards are briefly described, and their influence on the first four all -digital HDTV proposals is demonstrated. The salient features of each proposed video compression system are highlighted, and the more recent MPEG-2 compression standard is introduced. MPEG-2 was adopted as the basis for video compression by the GA, a group of the former HDTV comp etitors. The formation of the GA is described, and the work of its Vid eo Compression Specialists Group on evaluating modifications to MPEG-2 is reviewed. (C) 1995 John Wiley and Sons, Inc.