motion estimation and compensation for very low bitrate video coding

Introduction 5
the home. Experts have predicted
that by the year 2000,
the worldwide revenues of the
computer industry will be second
to agricultural revenues.
For a few years now, the
convergence of the digitized
world of computer with the
worlds of audio-visual data
and telecommunication have
taken us to an age of multimedia
and information technology.
Such a trend is especially
visible on the WWW
where pages (created with a
computer) that one can download
(across the Internet) contain
more and more visual
information. This evolution
is quickly changing the organization
of our society as it
abolishes both time and distances.
Data, sounds and images
are now traveling around
the world at the speed of light
thanks to the nascent information
highways. Nevertheless,
technology evolution requires
an evolution of mentalities.
Moreover, the end-user
of the proposed services is and
remains the human being. A
rst step in this direction is
the stress put by recent systems
on the interactivity concept:
the user is not passive
anymore but really becomes
the pilot of the application.
She nally logs o , answers
\positive" to the automatic
query about the quality of
transmission and switches to
the video editing table.
In analysis mode, she opens
the recording of her conversation
and selects the center of
the screen. Once the tracking
algorithm has performed
its task, she can save the segmented
head and body of her
grand-mother into a separate
le.
She then intermingles images,
past and present, reality and
ction, lms and cartoons.
She has a grand-mother jump
on Terminator's motorbike,
and join a sabbath of great
historical gures. Should she
have her dance with Attila or
Mandela? Would she have her
wear M. Monroe's dress?
Joauma nally got it!
This animation perfectly introduces,
with her twelveyears
old humor, the compilation
she achieved with all
the video archives of the family.
Moma's birthday present
is ready.