<title>Next generation CATV networks</title>

There is tremendous growth in the amount of digital video creation and communication with the proliferation of mobile consumer electronic devices such as cellular phones with video capture and display capabilities. This trend will continue with the demand for higher spatial and temporal video resolutions accompanied by 3D and multiview video. Since it is not practical to store or transmit the raw digital video data, it is essential to reduce it with digital video compression. To cope with the vast amount of raw digital video data, digital video compression standards use increasingly more complex algorithms. These algorithms achieve higher compression at the same quality at the expense of significant computational complexity. Therefore, it is essential to design low power digital video compression hardware especially for mobile devices. In this talk, I will present two sets of power reduction techniques for digital video compression hardware. The ones in the first set reduce the power consumption with no impact on the video quality. The ones in the second set trade off video quality for power consumption which also enables adjusting video quality based on available energy in the battery of a mobile device for graceful degradation. I will show the impact of these techniques on the power consumption of digital video compression hardware implementing H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC standards.

Digital video and signal compression technologies have created an increasing demand for high performance, efficient systems with the promise of streamlined operations and increased productivity. The transition of the broadcast industry to an all-digital environment for the creation of television news programming and television broadcast operations poses some unique challenges. For a new system to satisfy these requirements, the core design imperative has to incorporate novel networked system concepts, and the best of contemporary digital compression technology with an efficient total video and audio data rate that supports higher quality than that of current analog ENG systems.

Recent developments in networking technologies, coupled with the advent of high-capacity storage devices and improved coding schemes, will make it feasible to provide many advanced multimedia communications services. Among future telecommunication services, the VOD (Video On Demand) service is emerging as one of the most promising services. In this paper, we propose a new VOD service scheme that utilizes the dynamic multicasting capabilities of future networks. We first describe an overall VOD service architecture that consists of CPEs (Customer Premise Equipments), SCCs (Service Control Centers), and ISs (Information Stores). Based on the assumptions that each subscriber has local storage space and the video transfer speed is faster than the playback speed, we develop a new service scheme where video signals are multicasted to multiple subscribers simultaneously. To realize the potential benefits of multicasting, we propose two scheduling algorithms: EDS (Earliest Deadline Scheduling) and MMS (Most Multicasting Scheduling). Finally, we study the performance of multicasting scheme and compare the performance of the two scheduling algorithms via computer simulation. The simulation results show that multicasting increases the service capacity of an SCC significantly.

Terrestrial broadcast television in the United States has remained essentially unchanged in the last fifty years except for the addition of color and stereo sound. Today, personal computers are addressing the need for random access of high resolution images and CD quality audio. Furthermore, advances in digital video compression and digital communication technology have cleared the way toward offering high resolution video and audio services to consumers using traditional analog communications channels. In 1987, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chartered an advisory committee to recommend an advanced television system for the United States. From 1990 to 1992, the Advanced Television Test Center (ATTC) tested four all-digital systems, one analog High Definition Television (HDTV) system, and one enhancement NTSC system using broadcast and cable television environment simulators. The formation of the HDTV Grand Alliance in May of 1993 resulted from the withdrawal of the only analog HDTV system from the competition and a stalemate between the other four all-digital systems. The HDTV Grand Alliance system is composed of the best components from previously competing digital systems demonstrated to the FCC. Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG-2) syntax is used with novel encoding techniques to deliver a set of video scanning formats for a variety of applications. This paper describes the important features and concepts embodied in the HDTV Grand Alliance system.

compressed domain processing, transcoding, video editing, MPEG, splicing, reverse play, frame rate conversion, interlace to progressive, motion vector resampling Video compression algorithms are being used to compress digital video for a wide variety of applications, including video delivery over the Internet, advanced television broadcasting, video streaming, video conferencing, and video storage and editing. The impressive performance of modern compression algorithms, combined with the growing availability of video encoders and decoders and low-cost computers, storage devices, and networking equipment, makes it evident that between video capture and video playback, video will be handled in compressed video form. The resulting end-toend compressed digital video systems motivate the need to develop efficient algorithms for handling compressed digital video.

Personal communications services (PCS) key objective is to provide ubiquitous communication services. The success of PCS will depend on the network resources to ensure the quality-of-service required by service subscribers. Performance evaluation studies of different system configurations and implementation alternatives will play a major role in the planning and dimensioning of successful PCS networks. We undertake the analysis of some major implementation issues of a PCS architecture based on the IN system architecture. Different system configurations and traffic scenarios are considered in the study. The overall system performance is evaluated in terms of utilization rate of the key network elements and the end-to-end response time of the signaling network for various IN services.

The topography in Hong Kong is very unfriendly to mobile communications due to tall buildings, narrow streets, the busy harbor, the mountainous terrain and the scattered islands. The local mobile phone industry is more a service provider than a product manufacturer. The majority of the frontline research on antennas for personal communication services (PCS) and other wireless communications services is conducted in local universities. Both the Wireless Communications Research Center of the City University of Hong Kong and the Center for Wireless Information Technology of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have strong research programs on antenna research for PCS and other wireless communications frequency bands. We present some of our previous work on antennas size reduction and bandwidth broadening.

The term Personal Communications Services (PCS) encompasses a broad range of services designed to allow the customer to make use of the services of the wireline network without requiring that customer to access those services from one fixed network access point. This paper considers use of the local exchange Intelligent Network infrastructure to provide network access service to PCS service providers. Providing such access services will require significant modification to the existing infrastructure, in order to add the features necessary to support various aspects of mobility. Capacity and performance will be critical factors in determining an acceptable (economical and adequate-performance) architecture. This paper considers a specific PCS service where customers utilize small, light-weight, low-power portable digital radio telephones to make and receive calls while in residences, in buildings, and on the street (moving at pedestrian speeds). This paper focuses on the impact of PCS network access services on the call-processing capacity of a central-processor-based local switching system. The authors present a methodology for analyzing switch CPU real-time impact of providing PCS network access services. They also give preliminary results from this model which illustrate the potential capacity impact of providing PCS network access services. The data used as input to this study do not represent any existing implementation of PCS. This study is based on the assumption that PCS network access services are provided by a Local Exchange Carrier end office; and the results are based on real data for analogous processing tasks in a particular central-processor-based switching system. This study does show that PCS is likely to have a very significant impact on such a switch's real-time capacity, and that the switch impact is very sensitive to user mobility parameters.

Web user to avoid waiting to download a large file before seeing the video or hearing the sound. Instead, the media is sent in a continuous stream and is played as it arrives. The compressions of the video allow it to be played simultaneously. Depending on your choice of media player and the file's compression rate, the time it takes for the video to stream may vary. The file is hosted on a server which can multi-cast the same file to multiple users at the same time. When you click on the on the video it is partially loaded before you can access it. This is known as buffering. Now let's take a look on how to cut down on buffering time, stop slow streaming video and eliminate choppy PC video playback. Video has been an important media for communications and entertainment for many decades. Initially video was captured and transmitted in analog form. The advent of digital integrated circuits and computers lead to the digitization of video, and digital video enabled a revolution in the compression and communication of video. This Paper introduces the proposed architecture and algorithm for video streaming.

Users of future generation wireless information services will have diverse needs for voice, data, and potentially even video communications in a wide variety of circumstances. For users in dense, innercity areas, low power personal communications services (PCS) technology should be ideal. Vehicular- based users travelling at high speeds will need high-power cellular technology. For users in remote or inaccessible locations, or for applications that are broadcast over a wide geographic area, a satellite technology would be the best choice. Packet data networks provide an excellent solution for users requiring occasional small messages, whereas circuit switched networks provide more economical solutions for larger messages. To provide ubiquitous personal communications service, it is necessary to capitalize on the strength of each wireless technology and network to create one seamless internetwork including both current and future wired and wireless networks. As an initial step in exploring the opportunities afforded by the merging of satellite and terrestrial networks, Bellcore and JPL conducted several experiments. These experiments utilized Bellcore's experimental personal communications system (including several messaging applications with adaptations to wireless networks), NASA's advanced communications technology satellite (ACTS), JPL's ACTS mobile terminal, and various commercial data networks (such as the wireline Internet and the RAM wireless packet data network). Looking at loss of bits, packets and higher layer blocks (over the satellite-terrestrial internetworks with mobile and stationary users under various conditions) our initial results indicate that the communication channel can vary dramatically, even within a single network. We show that these conditions necessitate powerful and adaptive protocols if we are to achieve a seamless internetworking of satellite and terrestrial networks.

In Personal Communication Services (PCS) networks, mobile terminals (MT) are communicating frequently using variety of services. The increasing demands for diverse services dictate a high-quality framework for location management. To accomplish this objective, it is necessary to track MTs roving in the system within the time limit to deliver the services in timely manner. The expected reduction of the cell sizes due to transmission power concerns and for better frequency reuse in future PCS networks, and increasing speeds of MTs on the other hand, would cause a considerable signaling in the always updating (AU) strategy adopted in current PCS networks. Personalized location area (PLA) is an efficient way to reduce the location management cost by considering both the movement behavior of the individual users in the networks system and the system parameters. However, the PLA design problem is found to be NP-complete with high computation complexity. In this paper, we try to solve the problem by using the genetic algorithm (GA). Simulation results show that the location management cost of the designed PLAs by GA is significantly lower than that of the AU mechanism.

Personal mobility and terminal mobility which are viable through wireless access to communication networks are the most fundamental goals of personal communication services (PCS). The technology needed for the wireless access in PCS networks is generally provided by the cellular networks and intelligent networks (IN). In cellular networks, the wireless mobile terminals (WMT) communicate with base stations (BS) which convey the messages among the WMTs and switching centers (SC). SCs and BSs are usually wired to the upper layers of the communication network. In this paper, we briefly review PCS and then propose an algorithm which determines the number of SCs and the BSs attached to the determined SCs in a network for which BS information together with the traffic requirements are given. While the algorithm produces these solutions, it also satisfies some constraints determined by the network designers such as the maximum capacities and the minimum utilization for the SCs.

Personal communication services (PCS) promise to be the telecommunications wave of the future. Ubiquity and mobility are key aspects of PCS which are particularly attractive to the military. Also, PCS systems using digital spread spectrum technology can provide the military with performance in the areas of security and low probability of intercept (LPI)/low probability of detection (LPD). Given that current policy is advocating the use of commercial equipment and systems wherever possible, it is appropriate that DOD contractors investigate the use of and incorporate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment as much as possible and where appropriate. The mobile subscriber equipment (MSE) provided by GTE represents the largest investment in tactical communication systems the Army has undertaken. Preservation of this investment through the use of judicious product improvement in times of stringent military budgets is of utmost importance. MSE consists of a number of node center switches, large and small extension nodes, line of sight equipment, and mobile subscriber terminals. Access to the small extension nodes (SENs) of the MSE switches is via field wire. Providing a wireless access to the SENs via commercial PCS equipment will greatly enhance the performance and warfighting capability of MSE. Thus, GTE has established a program whose objectives are the integration of commercial PCS with MSE.

Cable is a transport medium capable of providing a full range of narrowband and broadband applications. With the advent of hybrid fiber/coax transport facilities, cable is positioned to provide a transport medium superior to the telephone company local loop for broadband applications. Personal communications services (PCS) is a specific application that has caused the cable television industry to examine several different approaches to exploiting the cable television network. Cable's focus is on several wireless telephony solutions which include transport for cellular microcells, PCS transport for third-party providers, and an infrastructure for cable operators who choose to provide end-to-end FCS. But before cable enters PCS, a number of business and public policy issues remain to be resolved. >

Over the last one and a half decades, digital video compression technologies have become an integral part of the way we create, communicate, and consume visual information. In this paper, techniques for video compression are reviewed, starting from basic concepts. The rate-distortion performance of modern video compression schemes is the result of an interaction between motion representation techniques, intra-picture prediction techniques, waveform coding of differences, and waveform coding of various refreshed regions. The paper starts with an explanation of the basic concepts of video codec design and then explains how these various features have been integrated into international standards, up to and including the most recent such standard, known as H.264/AVC.