HELP!

But it’s not really.

Video conversion is fairly easy if you have the right software.  This post will tell you about two different software packages that you can download for free over the internet.

WHAT IS VIDEO CONVERSION SOFTWARE?

There are thousands of different video file formats.  Incompatible files are indeed a royal pain in the wazoo.  It’s the reason why that Flash video won’t play on your iPad.  It’s also the reason that video disc burned by your friend won’t play on your DVD player.

Just like an 8-track audio tape won’t play in an audio cassette player, a .wmv video file won’t play on the DVD player designed for MPEG2 video files.

But lucky us, video conversion software will chew on that video file and pop out a brand new file in the format of your choice!

Although there are plenty of paid choices with video conversion software, there are also some good free ones and they might be all you need.

FREE!!!

One freebie that I use all the time is MPEG Streamclip by Squared 5.  It comes in versions for both Windows and Mac.  It functions with all formats that are Quick Time compatible.

By using any Quick-Time compatible codec, MPEG Streamclip can convert from:

• MOV, DV, MP4, AVI, DIVX, MPG, MPEG, VOB, PS, MOD, M2P, VRO, TS, DAT, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AVR, M2V

to

• MOV, DV, MP4, AVI, DIVX

For full compatibility with MPEG2, (the format used in home DVD players and the main format of commercial DVDs) Mac users need to buy an MPEG playback component from Apple  and PC users need to install the Quick-Time Alternative.

SQUARED 5 is a small group out of Italy who are generous enough to keep MPEG Streamclip as a freebie!  I use it all the time.

OPEN SOURCE CONVERSION SOFTWARE

Another, even more versatile choice is HandBrake.  HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed (General Public License), multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

Supported Sources for HandBrake:

• Most common multimedia files that libavformat and libavcodec support.  This is a huge list of formats.
• Any DVD or Bluray-like source which is NOT copy-protected. (removal of copy protection is not supported)

Outputs in HandBrake:

• File format: MP4(M4V) and MKV
• Video: MPEG-4(ffmpeg), H.264(x264), or Theora(libtheora)
• Audio: AAC, CoreAudio AAC (OS X Only), MP3, or Vorbis. AC-3 pass-through, DTS pass-thorugh (MKV only)

Between these two free choices, you can probably do just about all the video file converting  you’d ever need to!

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips!

Lorraine Grula

This tutorial will show you how to navigate their site to research whatever video equipment you are interested in.

You can learn so much about video production gear just by cruising through the B&H site.

You not only have easy access to all the technical specs and advertising descriptions, you also have access to loads of customer reviews.  We all know customer reviews from objective folks who shelled out their hard-earned cash and actually used a piece of gear will give you much more realistic information to help you make purchase decisions.

Naturally you want to be able to see what you purchase.  The site give you multiple photos of each item, often with good close-ups of small details.

If you are looking to buy or research video production equipment, the B&H Photo website can be a fantastic tool.  I hope my video tour will help you get more out of it.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips.

Lorraine Grula

The number of people using mobile video is skyrocketing and will no doubt continue to do so.  Pyramid Research just released a report predicting an annual compound growth rate for mobile video of 28% over the next five years.   That means that by 2014, more than 500 million users worldwide will subscribe to one of the growing numbers of mobile TV services.

This would place it as the #4 watched medium for video, behind TV, movies and computers screens.

If you want to get in on all that action, here is some info you’ll need on mobile video file formats and different services to help you distribute your video.

With mobile video, tiny is the name of the game.  It’s best to keep this fact in mind during the entire production process since tiny details and small fonts will get lost on a cell phone screen.  There are only a handful of common formats used for mobile video.  They’re all highly compressed in order to create tiny file sizes.

• 3GPP
• Flash Lite
• MPEG-4
• RTSP

3GPP (.3gp)

3GPP is the single most common mobile format.  It was developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, hence the name 3GPP.  It’s a globally standardized communication system so is ubiquitous worldwide.  If you record video on a cell phone, it will be saved as this format by default.

Most medium to high level video editing systems will convert and export 3GPP files.   Of course as with any video conversion need, there are many format conversion programs and plug-ins on the market available as freeware and shareware to help you make it work.

Flash Lite
Flash Lite is a streamlined version of Flash that was developed specifically for mobile phones and portable devices.  The full version of Flash of course is the single most common online video file format.  It is designated by an .FLV file extension.  Flash Lite is highly compatible with Flash players which makes it fairly universal.  To learn more visit the Adobe Flashlite website.

MPEG-4
Always versatile, MPEG-4 (named after developers Motion Picture Experts Group) is a good sharing format for mobile video.  It is also commonly used for online video in general but is one of the smaller formats so it works well for mobile video too.  Virtually any mobile video device will play an MPEG-4 video.

RTSP & RTP
Other technical terms you’ll run into using mobile video include RTSP and its cousin, RTP.  RTSP stands for Real Time Streaming Protocol.   RTSP is used to establish and control streaming media sessions.   RTSP is used in combination with RTP, which stands for Real Time Transport Protocol.   RTSP handles the stopping and starting and RTP takes care of the actual transmission of the stream.   If you use any kind of mobile distribution service, they will handle this aspect of it.

Distribution for Mobile Video

With cell phone video, you can shoot it live and distribute it with a video sharing service such as Qik. Qik seems to be one of the most comprehensive and user-friendly mobile video platforms online.

Not only can you post your vid, but you can share it via e-mails and blast it out to various social network sites like Twitter.   Another such service now in beta stage is Umundo. Both of these services are aimed more at the casual user although they can also be used for marketing videos.

For the serious business user, you might want to consider a service along the lines of Multivu and QuickPlay.  (None of these are affiliate links.)

I hope this information helps you take advantage of mobile phone video.

Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal

I’ve heard some people complain that confusion over file formats is what prevents them from using video online.

Let’s get over that!

Although they can indeed be a pain in the tush, understanding video file formats on a basic level well enough to use online video is NOT that difficult.

If simple use of online video is your goal, a complete A-Z knowledge of file formats will not be necessary to function.    If you know the common formats, you’ll probably be ok.

There are two main times during the whole process of video making when files formats are an issue.

1.  What format comes out of your camera?  (Or whatever your source video is.)  It needs to be accepted by whatever video editing program you use.   Before you buy a video editing program, check to see what formats it accepts.  Make sure it matches your source video format.

2.  When you are done with your video, you need to convert it into an appropriate sharing format.  There are only a handful of common sharing formats.    If you are up loading to the web, sites generally take the same common formats.

Source video files, used at the beginning of a project, will more likely be uncompressed, large files.

A sharing file on the other hand, is usually compressed quite a bit.

IS THERE ONE “BEST” FORMAT?

Most formats are compatible with multiple players and will work in many situations. Lots of people think there is ONE magic format that works best.  Truth is, all formats have their pros and cons and are used in different situations.

If you want to edit your video, save yourself some headaches and buy a video camera that records in an edit-friendly format like DV, mini-DV.  Mini Dv has been around for a while and is being replaced by newer formats like HVCHD.  Although more and more editing programs accept the newer formats, the pioneers of these formats always experience more headaches.  I hear lots of moaning about that.

Converting from one format to another is no more difficult that doing a “save as” with a word document.    You pick which format you want and the software does the rest.  The trick of course is to have the right software for the job and know what format you want.   Depending on the sophistication of the software you’re using, you might have options in terms of size, resolution, compression type, compression amount, etc.

Simple programs do not give you that many options.  In fact, really simple video editing programs often do not even require you know what format you need.  Those programs just ask how the video is going to be used and then select the right format for you.  If you haven’t a clue what you are doing, trusting that default process usually gets good results.

Any video editing software should be able to convert into multiple formats.   No matter what type of conversion you need to do, there is some conversion software somewhere that will do the job.  (That link will take you to a blog post about two free conversion packages).

It pays to know the most common formats.  There are literally thousands of video formats, but you DO NOT have to know even a fraction of all that in order to use online video with confidence.

This article lists the most common ones and their pros, cons and typical uses.

Here is a list of the most common formats with the pros and cons for each.  This list is by no means a complete list.  It is meant for beginning and intermediate level video producers.

If this list does not contain the information you seek, try this post too.

AVCHD: This is an HD format for high resolution video.   These files are becoming quite common as HD spreads to more consumers.  AVCHD is not a sharing format, it’s for video at the beginning of a project.  Since HD is still a new format, few edit programs handle HVCHD files yet, although the list grows daily.

Lots of cameras today shoot AVCHD and if you just want to watch your home movies without editing, AVCHD is a good format.  If you want to edit, be prepared for some troubles.   Not that you can’t do it, just be warned that it takes a while for editing programs to adjust to any new file format.  Check to see what formats your software accepts before buying an HD camera.   

.avi: AVI is what’s known as a container format.  (Sometimes referred to as a wrapper.)  There are many formats in this category and here’s what it means.  Let’s make an analogy of a “container” for liquid.  The container is the container; it will hold any kind of liquid.  (Or even a solid!)  You can put water or gasoline into the container.  Same with a “container” video format.

Video formats come in  parts, layers and types.  The “container” is part of the video file and it holds other parts.  Any video you watch is made up of a container and numerous interior parts.  For example, the video and audio are actually separate signals bundled together within the container.

Those interior parts can vary and the video still be considered a certain format.  This leads to very confusing compatibility issues!  Just because your format is something common like AVI does not mean it will work within a program that accepts AVI.  Chances are it will not be too hard to make the necessary adjustments once you know what you need to adjust.

AVI is an early form of video file so it has been around forever and is very common.   The fact that it has been around forever means it is highly compatible with most players, even with the rotating insides issues.

AVI is for video in the beginning of a video project. .avi files are usually way too big for a finished video so it is not considered a sharing file.    .avi is better used as a format in the beginning stages of video production, not for the final output.

.wmv: A Microsoft format. .wmv stands for Windows Media Video.  .wmv files are tiny because they are highly compressed.  This is one of the smallest  sharing formats, so it is for the end stages of your video project.

Any video this highly compressed looks a bit ragged, that’s just the nature of the beast.  I think .wmv files look horrible.  The more you compress a video, the more details and info you take out.  This makes your resolution suffers.  Compression is always a balance between file size and image quality.  But tiny video files are a great thing, so sometimes people are willing to put up with the lousy resolution in order to have the convenience of a small video file.

.WMV files are the type of videos you get emailed directly to you.  .wmv are about the only type of file small enough to email so that is a huge advantage.  As bad as I think wmv files look, I don’t care that the video is grainy when my friends send me funny videos attached directly to the email.

Since windows based products are so common, .wmv files will play on just about anything, except a Mac.  No problem!    If you want to play a wmv file on a mac, download some software from microsoft called Flip for Mac. There is a free version.

.mov files: .mov as the file extension means the video is a Quicktime Movie file, which is an Apple software product. Quicktime movie files are very common and one of my personal favorites. MOV functions frequently as both a sharing file but is quality enough to use as source video inside of an editing program.  In fact, if you download stock footage chances are fairly high that it will be an .mov file.

.mov files look great, but unless you compress them an awful lot, they are still a bit big for a sharing file.

I did an experiment where I converted the exact same video into both a .mov and the other into a .wmv, using the standard default compression settings.  The .mov look significantly better but it was 80MB and the .wmv only about 2 MB.  That is a huge difference and it showed but 80 MB is pretty fat.

.flv: .flv means it is a Flash video format.  This is an extremely common and popular format because it is small but still looks good.  This is the most common sharing format on the web there is.  Flash is slowly being replaced by HTML5 however as the online format of choice.  This happened when Steve Jobs and Apple came out with the iPad and refused to make it flash compatible.  Jobs apparently  hated flash.

.flv is highly compatible with most computers and browsers.   If you are watching a video online, it is probably in .flv format.   About 70% of all internet video is still Flash, although before the iPad, Flash was more like 98% saturation.

If you are uploading to the web, you do not necessarily need your video to be in flv format first.   Internet sharing sites like You Tube will accept multiple format uploads, but before they are actually posted online, You Tube converts it to .flv for you.  You do not have to convert it into flv yourself if you use many of the available online video platforms, they convert it for you.    If you have a video on your own server or in an amazon S3 account,  it used to be recommended that you convert to an flv before loading it onto your server because that way you will get the greatest number of viewers who can potentially see it.  Now however, because of HTML5, MPEG4 is the most universal format.

MPEG2: MPEG 2 is the type of video file the a home DVD player will read.  If you go out and rent a Hollywood Movie from Blockbuster, the DVD will contain an MPEG2 file.

MPEG2 is way too big for the web.  MPEG2 is also incompatible with video editing software. You can not edit an MPEG2 file without converting it first. Use some common and free conversion software called MPEG Streamclip.

Some new video cameras shoot on MPEG2 because camera manufacturers have realized more people care about the ability to pop their home movies into a DVD player to instantly watch than care about editing their video. So if you are buying a video camera, keep this in mind.  Before editing mpeg2 video you have got to convert it first.  That is not difficult once you have the mpeg streamclip which I linked to in the above paragraph.

MPEG4: MPEG 4 is today’s defacto universal standard for video files on the web.  MPEG4 is a sharing format that produces tiny files that still look pretty good.  Not as good as .MOV, IMHO but they are so much smaller in size the trade off is worth it if you are mostly concerned with size, not high resolution.  A video that is 100MB as a quicktime move might only be about 10 MB as a MPEG2.  (Assuming you use the default compression settings.)

Which file format is “best” for you to use depends on how you are going to use it.  If you want to email a video, it had better be tiny so you need to throw high resolution out the window.  On the other hand, if you are trying to impress some big money investors with a video of your invention,high resolution would be way more important than a tiny file size.  If you are going for the best compatibility online, today the recommendation is for MPEG4.

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY DIFFERENT FORMATS FOR VIDEO?

First, a brief explanation about why so many digital video file formats exist and what that really means.

High quality video files (raw footage files) are huge.  The higher the resolution, the bigger the file because it contains more information in order to achieve that high gorgeous resolution.  HD video is difficult to edit with the file sizes are so huge.

To play videos on the web or your computer, they have to be compressed, or made smaller.  This is done by designing ways to take information out of the video signal.  If you take information out, the resulting file is smaller but the loss of information degrades the picture quality. This process is called compression.

Video files can be compressed in a wide variety of ways by different kinds of software.  This results in many different formats.   Which format it is is indicated by the three letters (sometimes 4) that follow the file name.

Example: If a video file name is MyVacation.mov, the .mov means it is a Quicktime Movie file.  Quicktime is an Apple format described in detail above.

If the video file is MyVacation.wmv, the .wmv means it is Windows Media Video, which is a Microsoft format.  That format too is in the above list.

Lots of different companies and organizations have designed programs to compress video.  They each have their own way of doing it, so you have lots of different file formats.  Some were created by Microsoft, some by Apple, some by standardizing agencies like the Motion Picture Experts Group.

Once you compress a video, you have to have a program that “reads” it, or basically uncompresses it to play.  The program that “reads” the video  is called a video player.  Video players are built to read particular video file formats and not others.  This is where the incompatibility comes in.

In a video editing program, the format affects how each command will work.  When they design a program, they build it to work with certain formats only.

Microsoft was never anxious for you to see videos made by Apple computers, so they made their video players incapable of deciphering an Apple-made video and visa versa.

So everybody is competing and the nature of the beast guarantees incompatibility.   Phooey!

The good news is that over the years, more and more compatibility was built into the system in order to satisfy the public, who of course need easy compatibility.  So now, most computers contain multiple players, one of which will handle whatever video you want to play.  Most online video sites can also handle multiple formats.  So in general, if you stick with the most common formats, you will be fine.

Once you understand how easy video formats really are, you can convert and upload with confidence!

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips.

Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal

Some are old home movies, some are professional video stories and documentaries I produced twenty and thirty years ago. I actually have footage of me as a newborn baby! The rest of the box contains the next 50 years of my life.

Yup, there I am competing in AAU swimming and graduating from high school. (Well…actually it’s Steven Burke graduating from high school. My dad was a bit distracted and just filmed the first person he saw with long blond hair.)

I have old u-Matic 3/4 inch video, 1 inch video reel-to-reel video, 8mm film, VHS and Professional Beta. Problem is, I can’t LOOK at any of it because I do not have the right equipment to view it on.

The solution is to find a place that does have all the proper equipment and pay them to convert it all to DVD.

It’s on my to-do list.

Lucky for me, I just met a guy who might actually help me cross it off that infinitely huge list.

Tom Pryor worked for years as a professional film editor in the L.A. area. He now owns a website offering old file format conversion.  They do both video and audio files.

In addition to conversion, Tom and his team can edit your stuff to add some pizazz.  So if those ancient 8mm movies of me winning the 50 meter freestyle at the AAU open back when I was ten look green, he can apply color correction.  He could also add music, sound effects, titles and special effects.  As a former Hollywood film editor, Tom could take my life and turn it into an actually-fun-to-watch video extravaganza.

Maybe he could even put my head on Steven Burke accepting his diploma.  (It’s OK Dad, I know graduation ceremonies are boring.)

Tom wrote a brief article for Video Production Tips readers explaining everything they do.    Here it is.

AzCopyCats offers conversions for 45, 33 & 1/3, 78 and audio cassette to CD.  These conversions are done in house by myself or my partner Peter.  All audio conversions are labeled with either a scan from the album cover or the side one label from the record.  If there are no covers we use an appropriate generic label.  The audio tracks are separated and run through de-click programs which will remove 90% to 95% of the clicks and pops inherent with older records.

The video side of AzCopyCats is the area that both Pete and I really love. We convert VHS, BETA and Mini 8 tapes to DVD.  These can be straight conversions to DVD or fully edited versions with as much input as the client chooses to add to the process.  We cast off  the shackles of home video and create a true movie experience through the use of professional editing.  Titles, blowups, move ins, color correction and music are just a few of the tools that we use in this process.

There are many services that know how to operate editing software, but very few that know how to edit.  AzCopyCats is the only service that allows you to have your video edited by an A.C.E. (American Cinema Editors) editor with 30 years experience. Whether you want us to edit your video on our own or if you want full input as the cut progresses is totally up to you.

We can send out your 8mm and 16mm film for conversion but we actually recommend that you do that so that you know what you have before we begin the editing process. Most film houses do one lite conversions (the entire film reel is set to one exposure), so to get the best quality the brightness must be adjusted for the black and white reels and the color corrected on the color reels for maximum viewing quality.  With professional video editing, scene transitions, titles and music you can change awkward silent home movies into an adventure back in time!

AzCopyCats also converts slides and photos to  CD slide shows. For this format we offer straight conversions and a fully edited, color enhanced version with your choice of music and titles.

AzCopyCats offers a full range of services from straight conversion to the ultimate experience for the discriminating client who wants a unique listening or viewing experience that is matched by none in the industry.

We look forward to preserving and bringing life to your memories.

Thomas M. Pryor A.C.E.

Thanks Tom.  In the not-too-distant future, expect a BIG box from me!

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips

Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal

All that confusing alphabet soup seems like Greek.

Who can understand it?

Actually, video file formats are NOT that difficult. Most formats are compatible with multiple players and will work in many situations.

Converting from one format to another is really no more difficult that doing a “save as” with a word document. You pick which format you want and the software does the rest. Any video editing software should be able to convert into multiple formats.

However, to fully understand internet video, it pays to know the most common formats. To answer your questions about digital video file formats, I have produced a free, three-minute video tutorial. The video covers all the most common file formats and gives some pros and cons for each.

If you have questions about digital video file formats, take three minutes and watch this free tutorial. I think it will give you all the information you need but if you want even more detail, I have two much longer videos that explain the subject more fully. You can find them if you click here.

Once you understand how easy video formats really are, you can convert and upload with confidence!

As always, drop me a line a videoProductiontips@gmail.com and let me know what concerns you have about internet video production.

Thanks for being a subscriber.

Lorraine Grula
Internet video gal

Or, click here for a third post explaining FLASH Video format.

Digital Video Files Introduction

The wonderful world of digital video is drowning in a sea of alphabet soup. Do you get frustrated not knowing an .avi from an .flv?

To help you master the world of Internet and digital video, Video Production Tips has compiled a series of articles giving you a comprehensive, yet easy to understand list of all the different digital video file formats. This special series of user-friendly guides includes definitions of all the technical jargon you need to understand digital and Internet video.

If you want to know why there are so many confusing formats, blame the fact that everybody feels the need to have their own. Each development or manufacturing company, each standardizing organization, and every combination hereof, all have to come up with their own proprietary software codes and methods.

On one hand, that gives you lots of choices. On the other hand, it makes things confusing and sometimes prevents stuff from just WORKING!

Fortunately, much of this stuff actually works together. There are lots of friendly alliances and most folks work with a goal of compatibility and universal platforms in mind. The geeks really are trying to make it easy on us folks!

PRECISION KNOW-HOW IS NOT ALWAYS NECESSARY

Another thing that helps it all work without you needing to become a geek yourself is the fact that most computers today are loaded with multiple media player software, so just about any format will play if you click somewhere.

You often don’t really NEED to know exactly what you’re doing, trial and error gets you to the right place relatively quickly. But if you’re like me, I want to know what’s going on so I don’t waste any time.

Another word of caution about freaking out over file formats, although the technicians love to argue about specifics, and there are distinct differences, believe it or not, most people really do not notice the details of resolution.

Also keep in mind that not all formats are suitable for Internet Video, where file sizes need to be small. New HD formats are great for home entertainment, but are way too big for the web.

To make the article series complete, we have including digital still image formats as well as video formats.

Let’s start with the letter A:

AVCHD: Stands for Advanced Video Codec High Definition. This is a high end consumer home electronics format developed by Sony and Panasonic for HD home theater systems. It’s not a web format.

AVCHD is in its infancy as a format and will someday be much more common. Since it’s new, compatibility is still an issue. Video editing software applications are slowly adding this format to their repertoire.

AVCHD uses MPEG-4 H.264 encoding which is standard for many video formats. Blu-ray players will eventually play this format too and it will become a standard in home theater systems.

.AVI This is a format for motion picture files developed by Microsoft that conforms to standards set by Microsoft Windows Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF). .AVI stands for Audio Video Interleaved and works with applications that capture, edit and playback audio and video, like Windows Movie Maker. Because it is windows-based, .avi format is virtually universal. The problem with avi is that not all avi files are actually the same.  AVI contains multiple streams of different type data, including a control track and separate video and audio streams.  AVI is what’s known as a container format.    If what is IN the container is drastically different from your video player, an avi might not play for you.

As with all Microsoft products, this format is extremely common. .AVI is known for good video quality and commonality. AVI creates relatively large compressed files that retain high quality.

DivX A popular video compression software known for being able to squeeze an entire movie onto one CD. DivX has the reputation of being powerful and stable, providing excellent quality and high compression. This software has been developed jointly by the DivX Networks and the open source community, which many people feel is the best method of software development. Lots of brains with one goal. The hot new thing in DVD players is that some now play DivX files in addition to MPEG-2 files.

You can download a free trial of the DivX compression software at http://www.divx.com/ The site claims its been downloaded over 220 million times. According to their mission, DivX is more than compression software. It’s a global community informed by creativity and passion for all that is possible with digital media, and that community is growing in strength and number every day.

Some say DivX become the Internet’s de facto distribution standard, and it has the advantage of allowing viewers to skip around while watching. Some buffering is to be expected, but it works just like a video on your hard drive – you can forward, rewind and pause whenever you want to instead of being restricted to watching it from start-to-finish as it downloads.

Another popular feature about DivX is the open platform. Anyone can design plug-ins for DivX Connected using its open source SDK. It uses the Gecko rendering engine; the framework behind Firefox.

The many formats with PEGS.

How many PEGS does one need?

In the world of digital video, there are lots of pegs… JPEGS, MJPEGS, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-3, MPEG- 4 and variations of, on and on and on.   Each one of these is a distinct file format with different uses.  Here is an in-depth explanation of each.

Good Ole JPEG

JPEG is thought by many to be the name of a file format, but it actually stands for a group which devises standardizing specifications for digital images.  JPEG stands for the Joint Photographic Experts Group and the well known JPEG format is commonly used for still images.

The most common file extension for this format is .jpg, though .jpeg, .jpe, .jfif and .jif are also used just to make it all more confusing!  Many of these differing file extensions indicate slight variations of the format.

JPEG/JFIF is the format most used for storing and transmitting photographs on the Internet.  For digital stills, most people consider JPEG far superior to GIF, which has color limitations.

JPEG is also preferred to PNG, which produces much larger image files.

Even though it has great color reproduction, the JPEG compression algorithm is not well suited for line drawings or text, the kind of stuff that makes up logos.    PNG and GIF formats are preferred for these types of images.

JPEG Moves

MJPEG is the motion version of the JPEG format.  The added M stands for motion and an MJPEG is a series of still JPEG images blending together to form a moving image.

MJPEG is best suited for broadcast resolution video, which is higher than Internet resolution.  MPEG is not good for images less than TV resolution.  MJPEG doesn’t work at all good on computer progressive scan monitors.  MJPEG is usually used for short files made by a digital still camera, not a real video camera.

MORE PEGS FROM OTHER EXPERTS

Not to be confused with JPEG and MJPEG, you might also recognize MPEG as a format, but the acronym MPEG stands for another organization that develops standards defining formats.

MPEG refers to the Motion Picture Experts Group.  This international group was established in 1988 to develop standards for digital audio and video formats but they’re not the only group doing so as anyone who studies digital video files formats knows.

You’ll be glad to hear that many of these groups collaborate.

Four different MPEG standards developed by the group and bearing their name are now in common use on both the internet and home and professional video equipment.  Each format has a specific application and bit rate.

MPEG1. This format is often used in digital cameras and camcorders to capture small, easily transferable video clips.   It’s also the compression format used to create Video CDs, and is commonly used for posting clips on the Internet. The well-known MP3 audio format (see definition below) is part of the MPEG-1 codec.

To be specific, MPEG-1, Audio Layer 3 is the popular audio format known as MP3.

MPEG-1 continues to be a useful format.  As cheaper and more powerful consumer decoding hardware became available, more advanced formats such as MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 were developed.

Those newer formats were more complex and required more powerful hardware, but as with all advancements, the formats also achieved greater coding efficiency.  This gives you, the consumer, better quality in ever smaller and smaller file sizes.

MPEG-2 is the format used for standard DVD players and digital broadcast television coming from your cable company.

Commercially produced DVD movies, home-recorded DVD discs, and most digital satellite TV broadcasts employ MPEG2 video compression to deliver their high-quality picture.  If you rent a movie on DVD, it’s MPEG-2.

MPEG2 is also used by TiVo-based hard disk video recorders. It can rival the DV format when it comes to picture quality. Because MPEG2 is a “heavier” form of compression that removes a larger portion of the original video signal than DV, however, it’s more difficult to edit with precision so it is rarely used with video editing software.

The MPEG2 codec allows for selectable amounts of compression to be applied, which is how home DVD recorders and hard disk video recorders can offer a range of recording speeds.  The faster your recording, the greater your quality.

Main characteristics

MPEG-2 is widely used as the format of digital television signals that are broadcast by terrestrial (over-the-air), cable, and direct broadcast satellite TV systems. It also specifies the format of movies and other programs that are distributed on DVD and similar disks. As such, TV stations, TV receivers, DVD players, and other equipment are often designed to this standard.

With some enhancements, MPEG-2 Video and Systems are also used in some HDTV transmission systems.

MPEG-4.A flexible MPEG container format used for both streaming and downloadable web content.   It’s the video format employed by a growing number of camcorders and cameras and it is highly recommended. MPEG 4 has become one of the single most common web video formats as it is one of the most universal when it comes to playback.

In fact, when uploading video files to YouTube, they recommend you use MPEG-4 format.  YouTube accepts multiple formats, then converts them all to .flv for distribution, or at least they used to run exclusively Flash video for playback but all that has been evolving to include more MPEG4 for HTML5. .

MPEG-4  is considered by many to be the standard for multimedia and web compression and is the most used codec today.  It retains excellent picture quality.

This highly advanced compression software is based on object-based compression where individual objects are tracked separately and compressed together.

MPEG-4 is still a developing standard and is divided into a number of parts.

Unfortunately the companies promoting MPEG-4 compatibility do not always clearly state which “part” level compatibility.

The key parts to be aware of are MPEG-4 part 2 (MPEG-4 SP/ASP, used by codecs such as DivX, Xvid, Nero Digital and 3ivx and by Quicktime 6) and MPEG-4 part 10 (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, used by the H.264 codec, by Nero Digital AVC, by Quicktime 7, and by next-gen DVD formats like HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc).

Hopefully, you will not get tripped up by the multi-faceted nature of MPEG-4. Just be aware if something doesn’t work when it logically should, this might be the issue.

The H26L Series of Codecs

Now, we’ll talk about the H.26L series of codecs developed jointly in a partnership of the Video Coding Experts Group, (VCEG) and MPEG, the Motion Picture Experts Group. MPEG)  Those two groups based the H.26L series on earlier developmental work from the International Telecommunications Union based in Geneva, Switzerland.

The current version of the series, H.264, is an important element of many software applications.  H.264 is quite popular, versatile and high quality in many respects.

Like all things, H.264 has evolvoed from earlier versions. H.261 was the first version designed for transmission of video over Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) lines on which data rates are multiples of 64 kbit/s.

H.261 was considered a break-through technology.  The basic processing unit of the design is called a macroblock, and H.261 was the first standard in which the macroblock concept appeared.

One advantage of H.261 was an effective post-processing technique that became a key element called the de-blocking filtering. This reduced the appearance of annoying block-shaped artifacts caused when motion is compressed.   Such block-like pixilations are probably familiar to almost everyone who has watched digital video.

Deblocking filtering has since become an integral part of the most recent standard, H.264 (although even when using H.264, additional post-processing is still allowed and can enhance visual quality if performed well).

H.261 has become essentially obsolete, although it is still used as a backward-compatibility mode in some video conferencing systems and for some types of internet video.

H.263 is the second in this series designed by the ITU-T.  H.263 came in 1996 as a low-bitrate compressed format for video conferencing and internet transmission.

The next enhanced codec developed by this consortium is the H.264 standard, also known as AVC and MPEG-4 part 10.   It was completed in May 2003.  This version is the most up-to-date and H.264 provides a significant improvement beyond H.263.   Most new videoconferencing products now include H.264 but remain compatible with H.263 and H.261.

Digital Audio

No list of digital file formats would be complete without audio formats and the glorious MP3, which is actually MPEG-1, Audio Layer 3, but who’s counting?

MP3 is by far the most popular codec for storing and transferring music, made ubiquitous by iPods and other MP3 players.

To compress the file, MP3 removes frequencies judged to be essentially inaudible.   For most human ears, MP3 manages to deliver near-CD sound quality in a file that’s only about a tenth or twelfth the size of a corresponding uncompressed WAV file.

When creating an MP3 file, you can select varying amounts of compression depending on the desired file size and sound quality.

mp3Pro

An updated version of the original MP3 codec. Small, low-bitrate mp3Pro files contain much more high-frequency detail than standard MP3 files encoded at similar low bitrates.

The high-frequency portion of the audio signal is handled by an advanced and extremely efficient coding process known as Spectral Band Replication (SBR), while the rest of the signal is encoded as a regular MP3.

That means that when you play an mp3Pro file on non-mp3Pro-compatible software, it’ll play, but you’ll only hear the non-SBR-encoded portions.  This means you’ll lose the highs altogether.   Bummer.

The solution is to use a fully compatible audio program, such as Windows Media Player and mp3Pro files will deliver great sound quality with extremely low bitrates.

Wave at Me Baby!

.WAV file extension identifies a standard audio format for Windows operating systems that’s used for storing high-quality, uncompressed sound.   WAV files are large since they are uncompressed.   They provide extremely high quality audio.

.WAV contains CD-quality (44.1 KHz/16-bit) audio signals and require relatively large amounts of memory — roughly 10 MB per minute of music.

WAV is what’s known as a container format, or one which holds different kinds of data within its file. Container formats are gaining in popularity because of their multimedia applications, as well as their cross-platform compatibility. For example, a single container file can hold chapter information, hyperlinks and subtitles, as well as different kinds of codecs that enable various types of players to read the file.  This all makes it more convenient for the user.

Windows Media Audio, file extension .WMA

Like .wav, Windows Media Audio is a Microsoft product so is one of today’s most pervasive Internet audio formats. Though not as popular as MP3, proponents of the lossy compression format claim it outperforms MP3 in sound quality, particularly with files encoded at lower bitrates such as 64 or 96 Kbps.

This performance advantage makes it handy for applications like portable digital audio players, where total play time is limited by a finite amount of internal memory.  Although the technical specs will put WMA ahead of MP3, many human ears could never tell the difference.

The Windows Media Audio format features built-in copy protection abilities, unlike MP3. Windows Vista, the new Microsoft operating system, contains built in support for WMA encoding so you can easily create WMA music files.  No doubt Mr. Gates wants WMA to be even more common than it is.

WMV (Windows Media Video)

A .wmv file indicates one compressed using Microsoft’s proprietary lossy compression format for motion video. Windows Media Video is used for both streaming and downloading content via the Internet. Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, an application bundled with Windows Vista operating systems, lets you play back and manage a range of audio and video file types, including WMA and WMV.

.MOV:  This is the file extension used to identify an Apple Quick Time Movie.  Quicktime hasn’t been a Mac-only program for quite some time.  Quicktime versions exist on almost all PCs.  Some people argue that Quicktime is far superior to similar Windows based applications.

Xvid is an open-source lossy video codec based on MPEG-4. It was developed in response to DivX, and received its name from the backwards spelling of DivX. Xvid compresses a great deal of video content into relatively small files, and retains a reasonably good video resolution. It can be used with several different operating systems, and is a popular choice for transferring video over the Internet.

If you see a video file on your computer labeled MSWMM, be aware that this is a windows movie maker project file and not a video or movie file designed for sharing.  MSWMM will only play within Movie Maker.  When you want to save your movie to share it, that is the time to use Movie maker to convert it into a more universal format, such as .avi or .wmv.  This confuses many people.  No matter what video editing software you use, a project file is designed for working on within the editing program.  You must convert the project file to watch it on any other player.

I hope this extensive post on digital video file formats and audio formats  helps you!  Thanks for reading Video Production Tips!

Lorraine Grula