Welcome to the second IEEE Pacific Rim Conference on Multimedia (IEEE PCM 2001) held in Zhongguanchun, Beijing, China, October 22 24, 2001. Building upon the success of the inaugural IEEE PCM 2000 in Sydney in December 2000, the second PCM again brought together the researchers, developers, practitioners, and educators of multimedia in the Pacific area. Theoretical breakthroughs and practical systems were presented at this conference, thanks to the sponsorship by the IEEE Circuit and Systems Society, IEEE Signal Processing Society, China Computer Foundation, China Society of Image and...