The topic of the proposed book is signal compression. The compression (or low bit rate coding) of speech, audio, image and video signals is a key technology for rapidly emerging opportunities in multimedia products and services.

The book contains chapters dedicated to the subtopics of data, speech, audio and visual signal coding, together with an introductory overview chapter on signal compression. The overview article summarizes current capabilities and future trends. The signal-specific chapters that follow focus on the latest technologies and coding standards, while including self-contained introductions to the respective signal domains. The authors of the book chapters are recognized experts in the field of signal processing, compression in particular.

Signal compression dealing with both audio and visual signals technology has progressed very rapidly. The proposed book fills a clear void, and should prove to be a valuable reference, both to the practicing professional and to the relatively uninitiated student.