Region-of-interest: Processing and coding techniques overview of recent trends and directions

This chapter comprehensively covers the topic of the Region-of-Interest (ROI) processing and coding for multimedia applications. The variety of end-user devices with different capabilities, ranging from cell phones with small screens and restricted processing power to high-end PCs with high-definition displays, have stimulated significant interest in effective technologies for video adaptation. Therefore, the authors make a special emphasis on the ROI processing and coding with regard to the relatively new H.264/SVC (Scalable Video Coding) standard, which have introduced various scalability domains, such as spatial, temporal, and fidelity (SNR/quality) domains. The authors' observations and conclusions are supported by a variety of experimental results, which are compared to the conventional Joint Scalable Video Model (JSVM).