A VARIABLE RATE REAL-TIME SPEECH AND VIDEO CODER FROM 19.2 KBPS TO 64 KBPS AT 10 FRAMES/SECOND

RESEARCHERS ARE DESIGNING AND DEVELOPING A REAL-TIME VIDEO AND SPEECH ENCODER/DECODER SYSTEM THAT COMBINES THE FEATURES OF A HIGH QUALITY, LOW BIT-RATE, FULL COLOR VIDEO CODER WITH A HIGH QUALITY, VERY LOW BIT-RATE SPEECH CODER. THE TARGET BIT-RATE FOR THE COMBINED VIDEO AND SPEECH RANGES FROM 19.2 KBPS TO 64 KBPS. THE REAL-TIME HARDWARE ENVIRONMENT IS BASED ON A MULTIPROCESSOR CONFIGURATION USING TEXAS INSTRUMENT'S TMS320 FAMILY OF DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSORS. THE VIDEO CODER EXISTS AS A SIMULATION ON A SUN SPARC WORKSTATION, AND THE SPEECH CODER EXISTS AS A REAL-TIME PROGRAM ON A TI TMS320C30DSP MICROPROCESSOR. THE PERFORMANCE OF BOTH THE VIDEO AND SPEECH CODERS IS IMPRESSIVE, AND THE GOAL OF THE RESEARCH IS TO COMBINE THEM INTO A SINGLE, COST-EFFECTIVE SYSTEM FOR USE IN LOW DATA RATE VIDEO APPLICATIONS.