WE START WITH THE VOCABULARY
First, here is a list of the most used words:
A) FRAME RATE / FPS
The number of frames per second.
I recently wrote an article on this topic that you can find here.
B) VIDEO SIZE
This data measures the width and height of the video.
The most common measurements are (in pixels):
426 x 240 (240p)
640 x 360 (360p)
854 x 480 (480p)
1280 x 720 (720p)
1920 x 1080 (1080p)
2560 x 1440 (1440p)
3840 x 2160 (2160p)
Here is a sample mirror illustrating the main dimensions of the videos:
Video size and aspect ratio
C) PROPORTIONS
The aspect ratio of an image describes the proportional relationship between the width and the height.
D) CODEC
Codecs are software that encodes and decodes data digitally, making it easy to preserve and reproduce.
Basically, when it comes to codecs, it means that our video file has been compressed.
This file, once compressed, will be placed inside a container that we will talk about later.
There are different types of codecs, such as recording.
This is the software your camcorder uses to compress your movie files.
Then there is the export codec which is instead the format we decided to assign to our output video.
Finally, we have the codec for the master, which is the format in which we will save our final project.
The most used codecs are:
MJPEG
MPEG-4
H264
H265
WMV
PRO RES
DNXHD
D1) MJPEG
Motion JPEG or MJPEG is a format in which video frames are compressed as individual JPEG images.
The format is widely used by leading low-cost consumer cameras and webcams and is supported by most web browsers, the PlayStation, and the QuickTime player.
Unfortunately, not all devices are equipped with the Motion JPEG codec.
For those who don’t have it, the installation of additional software is required.
The most famous is Movavi Video Converter, a simple application that takes advantage of available hardware acceleration technologies and SuperSpeed mode, which instead supports ultra-fast compression without losing quality.
Movavi Video Converter enables you to process not only video, but also audio and photos by saving the resulting files in any popular formats like AVI, MP4, MOV, 3GP, MP3, and many other extensions.
D2) MPEG-4
The ‘MPEG-4 is one of the most popular codecs in the world.
It was introduced in late 1998 and is primarily used for applications such as video telephony or digital television, for streaming video over the Web, and for CD-ROM storage.
The advantage of MPEG-4, in fact, is the ability to compress a video of two hours on a CD, obtaining a high quality result.
Thanks to this, MPEG-4 has become very popular with users around the world.
Today, MPEG-4 is compatible with a large number of devices, from satellite television to mobile phones.
D3) H264
The H264 is part of the latest generation of codecs and is capable of high quality video with relatively low bit rates.
The standard offers up to twice the MPEG-4 compression.
In addition to the improvements in perception quality, the H.264 standard can deliver high-quality DVD video at less than 1 Mbps.
Personally, for the videos I upload to YouTube, I use the H264.
D4) H265
The H265, also known as High Efficiency Video Coding or HEVC, is the latest in a long list of video codecs.
Like its H264 predecessor, the H265 was developed for the broadcast industry by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group.
Compression is excellent as for H264 but is used for SD, HD and 4K movie resolutions.
D5) WMV
WMV is the Microsoft-generated codec used to compress Windows Media video files.
It is the format that is used to store videos in Windows, which is why some third-party programs use it for other things like very short animations for example.
For audio files, the WMA extension is used instead.
D6) PRO-RES
Pro-Res is a video codec created by Apple for the QuickTime format.
Born as an editing format, it was later used as a recording format in professional cameras for the broadcasting field.
There are a total of five Pro-Res formats:
ProRes 4444
ProRes 422 (HQ)
ProRes 422
ProRes 422 (LT)
ProRes 422 (proxy)
These formats range from extreme compression to minimal compression rates.
It is important to note that each Pro-Res format supports all current frame sizes such as SD, HD, 2K, 4K, and 5K.
D7) AVID DNXHD
Avid DNxHD (Digital Nonlinear Extensible High Definition) is a video codec designed to compose with little demand for storage and data bandwidth.
