DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Before proceeding to the description of the drawings, it should be understood that, although the invention is described herein in the context of broadcasting television signals, such as movies and the like, in a pay television system, the present invention is in no way limited thereto.
Rather, the present invention may be employed wherever it is desired to compress and transmit any type of data, including conventional (i.
e.
, free) television broadcasts, image data, voice data, etc.
Referring now to the drawings, wherein like numerals indicate like elements, there is illustrated in FIG.
1 an exemplary application of a vector quantization image compression system according to the present invention wherein moving image data (e.
g.
, television signals, such as movies, etc.
) is communicated from a point of origin 12 to receiving locations such as 14 or 16.
Typically, the point of origin 12 might include a source 20 of program material that supplies movies, and the like in analog form to an apparatus (encoder) 22 for digitization and data compression by vector quantization.
Details of apparatus 22 will be supplied hereinafter.
Compressed, digitized data is transmitted to a satellite 18, via transmitter 24, for reception by a plurality of earth stations such as 14 or 16.
The earth stations 14, 16 may be the head-end of a cable television distribution system of the type which receives signals from the satellite 18 and distributes them to a plurality of subscribers via coaxial cable.
Alternatively, as will be explained in connection with FIG.
2, one or more of the earth stations may be DBS (direct broadcast satellite) subscribers who receive signals directly from the satellite 18.
The term "pay television" and "pay television subscriber" is used in the instant specification and accompanying claims to encompass both cable television and direct broadcast satellite applications.
However, as mentioned above, the invention is by no means limited to pay television systems, but has application to conventional (i
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I/O Systems 
