The structure of an electronic movie. Digital formats have more options than older analog formats, and the following are encoding variables in digital video. For analog video formats, see
analog video format. See
HD formats,
SD formats,
codec examples and
DTV.
Compression (DCT, MPEG, etc.)
Compression algorithms eliminate pixels and save bandwidth and storage space. See
data compression.
Interframe vs. Intraframe
Interframe coding creates partial frames to save space, but there are editing issues later on. See
interframe coding.
Chroma Subsampling and Bit Rate
Chroma subsampling compresses the color components, while the bit rate determines how much data is encoded in each frame. See
chroma subsampling and
bit rate.
Resolution, Frame Rate and Progressive/Interlace
Horizontal and vertical resolution determine the frame's aspect ratio and whether it is standard or high definition (SD or HD). The number of frames per second (frame rate) impacts high-speed action. In progressive scan, there is twice as much data per frame as there is in the interlace method. See
screen resolution and
progressive scan.
Summary of Digital Video Attributes
1 - compression (DCT, MPEG, etc.)
2 - interframe vs. intraframe
3 - chroma subsampling
4 - bit rate
5 - horizontal/vertical resolution
6 - frame rate
7 - progressive scan vs. interlace