A reference book for everything related to digital video. Students and engineers can really benefit from this book. It has a special place on my bookshelf considering that I'm reading it over and over again. The book explains both basic video and digital principles also covers conversion, digital video processing, video compression, digital audio in video, and digital recording. At the end, for a special desert, it has DVE effects explained just as if you were listening classes at the university.

dad, i gotta say on the 3rd edition u really excelled u r self, the cover of the book is much more wicked than the other editions. the content is all super accurate and the narrative is great. if you don't buy this book then u definitely need to get u r head checked. buy it. now. cos i say so.... howward w.

This book has all the details of doing digital audio, starting with banging two rocks together to start a fire, and quickly progressing to the development of western civilization. ... ok, it's not *quite* that bad. But there is precious little relevant information to any modern project. When your car's mp3 player is running Linux, who cares that Gray codes are the way to go for digital tape positioning? Who needs to be told that you might want to think about doing a calculation in RAM instead of with discrete digital components? There's a good chapter on "advanced digital audio processing". And it explains basic things about dithering, mixing, gain control, etc. But on the whole this book is very geared toward antiquated hardware, rather than presenting theories or algorithms that are relevant to all digital systems. I guess that's why it's the "art" and not the principles of digital audio. In the index you will find "cylinder transducer", but not "pitch" or "tempo".

The Art of Digital Audio is well written and informative technical overview of digital audio, except that being a mid 1990s book, it almost completely omits detailed coverage of some topics (like MPEG audio compression) that would nowadays have to be considered critical. It is nonetheless an essential component of the well informed digital audio engineer's library. There is a *lot* of stuff in this compendium that you would otherwise have to find scattered over a dozen other books. One hopes a revision for the twenty-first century is in the works.

Working for a Digital Audio Workstation company, this book is my every-question-answered book. There is no more complete book. If you're afraid this book may be too much for you, get Ken Pohlman's 'Principles of Digital Audio' first. Then if you didn't learn what you wanted to know there, Watkinson is the next and final step you'll ever need.

I was looking for an introduction to digital video that would explain basic concepts without assuming an engineering background. In other words, I wanted to know what composite video is and how color is encoded in the video signal, but without timing diagrams and math. This is not that book. It might be an "introduction" for a video engineer, but not for a standard computer user. Had to return it.

I have only one cuestion about 4:2:2 Why 4:2:2 and not 5:3:3 or something diferent?

Television Fundamentals is a must for every professional who works in audio/video. In such subject Mr. Watkinson is a great Master. Congratulations for this nice work.

PS: I strongly suggest for the next editions of this book that it could be printed in a better format in such way we can see the figures clearer (sorry the claim, nothing is perfect).

The books provides a reasonable overview of technical principles associated with MPEG-2, but it lacks technical depth. The treatment of audio compressions (an essential component of MPEG) is very terse.

gives a good intro to basic foundations of algo's behind MPEG. Just enough material to give beginners a good handle on important topics such as (i)DCT, etc

este es un excelente libro para aquellos que comienza en el excelente y virtuoso mundo de el audio, y en especial para aquellos que lo llevamos en el corazon. la forma en que explica el autor es bastante comprensible y con ejemplos bastante ilustrativos. si lo tuyo es un hoby compralo pero si buscas algo mas profesional este libro no es para ti.

This short, simple book is a decent introduction to the subject. But, it is largely copied from his earlier book "The Art of Digital Audio." I think the amazon.com claim of 256 pages may be incorrect. I only count 176.

This book covers a broad range of topics, some relevant to video and audio coding, some not (e.g. digital filters, Fourier transform, phase locked loop !). Key topics such as motion estimation and compensation are not clearly described. The information on the MPEG standards is disappointing, by my reckoning less than 1/3 of the book actually deals with MPEG. There is no mention of MP4 profiles/levels or MP4 systems.