One of the things I really love about digital signal processing technology is how, year by year, it gets easier to create new things. Things like clever new audio or video compression algorithms, for example.
Forget about needing mainframes, minicomputers, or expensive engineering workstations to evaluate that new algorithm. Today we’ve got powerful PCs and easy-to-use simulation environments that make the whole process relatively painless.
Forget about the time, money, and risk required to design custom chips that can implement your algorithm in real time. Today we have high-performance processors and FPGAs that make it much easier to create affordable implementations.
Besides the sheer fun of creating stuff, the practical implications of these changes are profound: what once required the resources of a major corporation can now be done by a couple of grad students with a $500 laptop.
Mostly this is a good thing, because it stimulates competition and makes it easier for good ideas to see the light of day. Of course, it also makes it easier for mediocre ideas to see the light of day. And horrible ideas. And worse, ideas that are better than yours.
Still, even if your idea is the best from a technical standpoint, that doesn’t mean that anyone will pay money for it. Ironically, at the same time it's getting easier to experiment with digital signal processing algorithms and create real-time implementations, I believe that it's also getting harder to deliver real value by doing so. This is due to a second, parallel trend: the increasing complexity of electronic systems.
Just look at the ubiquitous portable digital audio player, to take one example. Let’s say that you’ve come up with the ideal audio compression algorithm: it delivers higher audio quality, with lower bit rates and lower computational demands compared to the mainstream algorithms. You’ve got the simulations and analysis to prove it. What will it take to get that algorithm adopted in a big way? Lots of things that have nothing to do with your idea: things like patents, the need to get content owners to support your format, the need to get SoC vendors to support your format, etc.
One of the things that I really hate about digital signal processing is how, year, by year, it gets harder to create anything that anyone will buy.
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