A new approach for echocardiogram compression based on display modes

In this paper a new technique for echocardiogram compression is proposed. The traditional video compression algorithms used in echocardiography compress the entire video in the same way and the particular characteristics of the operation modes are not considered. In a general way, the operation modes can be divided into two groups, the sweep modes and the 2D modes, which have particular characteristics in the way of displaying the ultrasound. For this reason, the proposed approach takes into account their particular characteristics and different compression techniques are applied to each display mode. For all modes of operation the new technique has been compared with other compression methods like H.264 and XVID, widely used in echocardiography. Lower transmission rates are achieved with the same Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) supporting the use of the proposed approach.