Totally solid, and still the only book out there

I almost didn't get this book because some of the other reviews are pretty bad. I'm glad I got it!

This isn't a standard. So you won't find every table that's part of h.264, but you'll find enough that the standard will be accessible after you read this book. And given that the goal is conversational instead of documentary, Richardson has done a terrific job of simultaneously describing a host of relatively difficult concepts, explaining how they fit together, and explaining their places in the MPEG4 and H.264 standards.

This is probably not a first book on video compression; for that, you might try Digital Video Compression (with CD-ROM). If you get that other book, though, only read the first half. (The second half is absurdly dated and not very helpful.) I think it's reasonable to read the first half of that book, then this one, and then jump right into the standard itself (for whatever purposes you want to do that).

Other Reviews

• Totally solid, and still the only book out there
• Pretty useless
• A book which is better than many overview papers
• One Chapter on H.264 Only - Don't Bother