In this paper we provide a complete and unifying characterization of compactly supported univariate scalar orthogonal wavelets and vector-valued or matrix-valued orthogonal multi-wavelets. This characterization is based on classical results from system theory and basic linear algebra. In particular, we show that the corresponding wavelet and multi-wavelet masks are identified with a transfer function $$ F(z)=A+B z (I-Dz)^{-1} , C, quad z in mathbb{D}={z in mathbb{C} : |z| < 1}, $$ of a conservative linear system. The complex matrices $A, B, C, D$ define a block circulant unitary matrix. Our results show that there are no intrinsic differences between the elegant wavelet construction by Daubechies or any other construction of vector-valued or matrix-valued multi-wavelets. The structure of the unitary matrix defined by $A, B, C, D$ allows us to parametrize in a systematic way all classes of possible wavelet and multi-wavelet masks together with the masks of the corresponding refinable functions.
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