Book excerpt: The past few years have seen a rapid growth in image processing and image communication technologies. New video services and multimedia applications are continuously being designed. Essential for all these applications are image and video compression techniques. The purpose of this book is to report on recent advances in VLSI architectures and their implementation for video signal processing applications with emphasis on video coding for bit rate reduction. Efficient VLSI implementation for video signal processing spans a broad range of disciplines involving algorithms, architectures, circuits, and systems. Recent progress in VLSI architectures and implementations has resulted in the reduction in cost and size of video signal processing equipment and has made video applications more practical. The topics covered in this volume demonstrate the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of VLSI implementation of video signal processing applications, involving interactions between algorithms, VLSI architectures, circuit techniques, semiconductor technologies and CAD for microelectronics.