Figure 1. A typical master control system today. Note the
presence of numerous encoders and decoders in an environment.
Click here to see an enlarged diagram. Compressed digital video
used to be considered a novelty in the television industry. But
numerous technology advances, not to mention the FCC mandate for
digital terrestrial service and increasing consumer demand for
high-quality images, have made it a must-have for broadcasters.
Processing compressed video, however, still presents a number of
challenges. This is why it is typically decoded to baseband,
processed and then re-encoded. In fact, by the time it is ready
to air, some footage has been encoded and decoded so many times
that the original quality has been significantly degraded. This
is an expensive solution, especially in a high-definition or
multichannel environment. What, then, are broadcasters to do
when confronted with multiple video sources all compressed to
different bit rates, particularly if they wish to place their
own stamp on this pr