This comprehensive new book provides you with a solid understanding of the applications and supporting technologies associated with digital video communications, and shows you how to provide reliable, flexible, and robust video transmission over various networks. The book begins with an in-depth discussion of the new and emerging applications of digital video communications including tele-medicine, videoconferencing, and distance learning, and introduces the key systems required to support digital video: the Internet, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks, and Broadband ISDN. It also explores near-future developments to the Internet that will allow it to support real-time video traffic. In addition, the book presents new and soon-to-be-realized digital video compression and decoding techniques including the MPEG1, MPEG2, and MPEG4 International Standards, the JPEG still image compression standard, and the teleconferencing ITU H.320 standards. Other chapters enable you to... • Meet the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements for providing digital video communications • Improve QoS using Forward Error Correction and layered video coding methods • "Work your way around" transmission errors to improve digital video quality • Understand and apply rate control to coded video transmission This clearly written book is an invaluable introduction to the subject and a practical reference for communications engineers system designers, technical staff, and consultants involved in the video, television, computing, and communications industries. It is also an excellent teaching tool for electronic engineering and computer scienceinstructors.