VLSI Circuits, Systems, and Architectures for Advanced Image and Video Compression Standards

Modern image and video standards achieve very high compression ratios and include several coding modes in order to address applications with different requirements ranging from low-complexity to high-quality/high-end applications. As a consequence, VLSI circuits, systems, and architectures are mandatory to effectively address the above-mentioned challenges and application demands/characteristics with low power consumption. This special issue is dedicated to research problems and innovative solutions in all aspects of design and architecture addressing realization issues of cutting-edge standards for image and video compression. The authors have focused on different aspects including i) VLSI architectures for computationally intensive blocks, as the DCT and the intra-frame coding mode; ii) Automatic code generation and multicore implementation of complex video encoders, as MPEG4 and H.264. Due to the increasing importance of stereo and 3D video processing an invited paper dealing with this topic is included in the issue.