Improving upon the HD-MAC algorithm for HDTV bandwidth compression

The European Eureka 95 project (for the development of HD-MAC) has as one of its main areas of activity the evolution of a suitable algorithm. Different algorithms have been developed and demonstrated by Eureka members in the past and now a provisional system has been chosen. The performance of the proposed HD-MAC algorithm has aroused much interest. It is well matched to the characteristics of present HDTV sources and displays. There is some concern, however, that the margin for coping with future developments may be somewhat limited. Therefore, the BBC, one of the Eureka members, has been looking into ways of further improving the resultant picture quality. The author describes the basic operation of the HD-MAC algorithm, ad some of the work which has been done on improving it. Some remaining problems and possible further work are also mentioned