This paper discusses the current state of compression for digital video on the
desktop. Today there are many choices for video compression that yield different
performance in terms of compression factor, quality, bitrate, and cost. Users
want a single low cost solution which, unfortunately, today is non-existent. Consequently,
users will have to develop applications in an environment with multiple representations
for digital video unless PC's can be assigned to dedicated applications. Alternatively,
programmable compression/decompression boards can be used to solve the problem.
Eventually, special-purpose hardware solutions will be replaced by general-purpose
software running on desktop parallel processors which will be implemented by multiple
CPU's per chip.