This book discusses the growth of digital television technology and the revolution in image and video compression (such as JPEG2000, broadcast TV, video phone), highlighting the need for standardisation in processing static and moving images and their exchange between computer systems. The book gives an authoritative explanation of picture and video coding algorithms, working from basic principles through to the advanced video compression systems now being developed. One of its main objectives is to describe the reasons behind the introduction of a standard codec for a specific application and its chosen parameter.