Hardware accelerationHardware acceleration is the use of computer hardware designed to perform specific functions more efficiently when compared to software running on a general-purpose central processing unit (CPU). Any transformation of data that can be calculated in software running on a generic CPU can also be calculated in custom-made hardware, or in some mix of both. To perform computing tasks more quickly (or better in some other way), generally one can invest time and money in improving the software, improving the hardware, or both.
Discrete cosine transformA discrete cosine transform (DCT) expresses a finite sequence of data points in terms of a sum of cosine functions oscillating at different frequencies. The DCT, first proposed by Nasir Ahmed in 1972, is a widely used transformation technique in signal processing and data compression. It is used in most digital media, including (such as JPEG and HEIF), digital video (such as MPEG and H.26x), digital audio (such as Dolby Digital, MP3 and AAC), digital television (such as SDTV, HDTV and VOD), digital radio (such as AAC+ and DAB+), and speech coding (such as AAC-LD, Siren and Opus).
Sample-rate conversionSample-rate conversion, sampling-frequency conversion or resampling is the process of changing the sampling rate or sampling frequency of a discrete signal to obtain a new discrete representation of the underlying continuous signal. Application areas include and audio/visual systems, where different sampling rates may be used for engineering, economic, or historical reasons. For example, Compact Disc Digital Audio and Digital Audio Tape systems use different sampling rates, and American television, European television, and movies all use different frame rates.
Zero-order holdThe zero-order hold (ZOH) is a mathematical model of the practical signal reconstruction done by a conventional digital-to-analog converter (DAC). That is, it describes the effect of converting a discrete-time signal to a continuous-time signal by holding each sample value for one sample interval. It has several applications in electrical communication. A zero-order hold reconstructs the following continuous-time waveform from a sample sequence x[n], assuming one sample per time interval T: where is the rectangular function.
UpsamplingIn digital signal processing, upsampling, expansion, and interpolation are terms associated with the process of resampling in a multi-rate digital signal processing system. Upsampling can be synonymous with expansion, or it can describe an entire process of expansion and filtering (interpolation). When upsampling is performed on a sequence of samples of a signal or other continuous function, it produces an approximation of the sequence that would have been obtained by sampling the signal at a higher rate (or density, as in the case of a photograph).
