Perspective for super-high-definition image systems

The authors are developing a super-high-definition image system with the aim of integrating all existing media without any distinction between still and moving images. This article describes JPEG and MPEG-2 as compression encoding methods required for the efficient transport and storage of SHD images with their vast amounts of data, and relates the results of investigations of their characteristics. While the characteristics of such encoding algorithms depend on the nature of the image data, using enhanced MPEG-2 algorithms on SHD images can compress a 6 Gb/s original to 150 Mb/s with nearly no loss in quality. The authors also point out the technical issues involved in implementing a system for SHD moving images and describe their actual approaches.