The process of converting, or digitizing, the almost infinitely variable
amplitude of an analog waveform to one of a finite series of discrete levels. In
video compression, quantization is a process that attempts to determine what information
can be discarded safely without a significant loss in visual fidelity. The
quantization process is inherently lossy because of the many-to-one mapping
process. [Source: Xilinx Web site]
Quantization, by Author Latha Pillai (PDF) This application note describes a reference design to do a quantization and inverse quantization of MPEG-2 video signals. After a brief introduction, the process of using JPEG and MPEG-2 standards for quantizing matrices is developed. Finally, implementing the Xilinx solution for quantization or inverse quantization is described.
