High Definition Video Over a Cellular Network

A development by Ulrik Söderström from Digital Media Lab, Umea university in Sweden, claims to be able to broadcast video with HDTV-quality and transmit it over a regular cellular phone network. His research regards video and how you can compress the images so that they can be transmitted over any kind of connection while still maintaining high image quality.

The equipment that is used in the trial set up is a backpack with a video camera mounted on a bar in front of the person wearing it or a small camera mounted on a helmet. "In the near future the equipment can be so small that it is like using a hands-free, but in this case for video communication," says Ulrik Söderström.

"A large part of our communication is non-verbal, for example the facial expressions and body language of the person we are communicating with. When we canÃ't se each other a large part of what we are mediating is lost," explains Ulrik Söderström.

His technique makes use of video areas that are classified as important, for example the mouth and the eyes. From changes in these areas and by using a model of the personÃ's face Ulrik can reconstruct a movie in a way that the compressed video needs very little space and at the same time retains high image quality. This means that the sender isnÃ't dependent on fast connections and can use any kind of network for producing good image quality.

He says that video can be transmitted at as low bitrate as 5 kbps, which can be compared to audio via the regular cellular phone network that needs almost 10 kbps.

Posted to the site on 18th September 2008