Adaptive Videosignalkompression

摘要

This invention relates to improvements in compressing digital signals, particularly in buffer management prior to transmission. This invention provides a method of compressing an input digital signal 10 to produce an output digital signal 13 in a system having a buffer 12. The degree of compression is variable and is controlled according to the occupancy of the buffer 12. The output signal 13 contains a representation of the applied compression within a predetermined range having an upper limit. The input signal may be compressed beyond the upper limit according to the occupancy of the buffer 12 whilst continuing to include a representation of the applied compression in the output signal that is within the predetermined range. One advantage of this method is that the encoder 20 can sustain rapid changes in bit-rate and avoid encoder buffer overflow and hence decoder buffer underflow. The invention provides a method and apparatus for improving the management of data within the encoder 20 and consequently the decoder 16. <IMAGE>