Multimedia has at its very core the field of signal-processing technology. With the exploding growth of the Internet, the field of multimedia processing in communications is becoming more and more exciting. Although multimedia leverages numerous disciplines, signal processing is the most relevant. Some of the basic concepts, such as spectral analysis, sampling theory and partial differential equations, have become the fundamental building blocks for numerous applications and, subsequently, have been applied in such diverse areas as transform coding, display technology and neural networks. The diverse signal-processing algorithms, concepts and applications are interconnected and, in numerous instances, appear in various reincarnated forms.

This chapter is organized as follows. First, we present and analyze digital media and signal processing elements. To address the challenges of multimedia signal processing while providing higher interactivity levels with the media and increased capabilities to access a wide range of applications, multimedia signal-processing methods must allow efficient access to processing and retrieval of multimedia content. Then, we review audio and video coding. During the last decade new digital audio and video applications have emerged for network, wireless, and multimedia computing systems and face such constraints as reduced channel and width, limited storage capacity and low cost. New applications have created a demand for high-quality digital audio and video delivery. In response to this need, considerable research has been devoted to the development of algorithms for perceptually transparent coding of high-fidelity multimedia.