Uncompressed video is digital video that either has never been compressed or was generated by decompressing previously compressed digital video. It is commonly used by video cameras, video monitors, video recording devices (including general-purpose computers), and in video processors that perform functions such as image resizing, image rotation,

deinterlacing Deinterlacing is the process of converting interlaced video into a non-interlaced or progressive form. Interlaced video signals are commonly found in analog television, digital television (HDTV) when in the 1080i format, some DVD titles, and a ...

, and text and graphics overlay. It is conveyed over various types of baseband digital video interfaces, such as

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controll ...

, DVI,

DisplayPort DisplayPort (DP) is a digital display interface developed by a consortium of PC and chip manufacturers and standardized by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). It is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device su ...

and SDI. Standards also exist for the carriage of uncompressed video over

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections ar ...

s. Some HD video cameras output uncompressed video, whereas others compress the video using a lossy compression method such as

MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by ISO and IEC that sets standards for media coding, including compression coding of audio, video, graphics, and genomic data; and transmission and fi ...

or H.264. In any lossy compression process, some of the video information is removed, which creates

compression artifact A compression artifact (or artefact) is a noticeable distortion of media (including images, audio, and video) caused by the application of lossy compression. Lossy data compression involves discarding some of the media's data so that it be ...

s and reduces the quality of the resulting decompressed video. When editing video, it is preferred to work with video that has never been compressed (or was losslessly compressed) as this maintains the best possible quality, with compression performed after completion of editing. Uncompressed video should not be confused with

raw video Uncompressed video is digital video that either has never been compressed or was generated by decompressing previously compressed digital video. It is commonly used by video cameras, video monitors, video recording devices (including general-purp ...

. Raw video represents largely unprocessed data (e.g. without demosaicing) captured by an imaging device.

Recording

A standalone video recorder is a device that receives uncompressed video and stores it in either uncompressed or compressed form. These devices typically have a video output which can be used to monitor or playback recorded video. When playing back compressed video, the compressed video is uncompressed by the device before being output. Such devices may also have a communication interface, such as Ethernet or USB, which can used to exchange video files with an external computer, and in some cases control the recorder from an external computer as well. Recording to a computer is a relatively inexpensive alternative to implementing a digital video recorder, but the computer and its video storage device (e.g.,

solid-state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It i ...

RAID Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to: Attack * Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground * Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business * Panty raid, a prankish raid by male colleg ...

) must be fast enough to keep up with the high video data rate, which in some cases may be HD video or multiple video sources, or both. Due to the extreme computational and storage system performance demands of real-time video processing, other unnecessary program activity (e.g., background processes,

virus scanner Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name ...

s) and asynchronous hardware interfaces (e.g., computer networks) may be disabled, and the process priority of the recording realtime process may be increased, to avoid disruption of the recording process. HDMI, DVI and HD-SDI inputs are available as

PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common m ...

(partly multi-channel) or ExpressCard, USB 3.0 and

Thunderbolt A thunderbolt or lightning bolt is a symbolic representation of lightning when accompanied by a loud thunderclap. In Indo-European mythology, the thunderbolt was identified with the Proto-Indo-European mythology#Sky Father, 'Sky Father'; this ...

interface also for

2160p 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K Ultra-high-definitio ...

(

4K resolution 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K UHD) is the domina ...

). Software for recording uncompressed video is often supplied with suitable hardware or available for free e.g.

Ingex Ingex is an open-source (GPL) suite of software for the digital capture of audio and video data, without the need for traditional audio or video tape or cassettes. Serial digital interface (SDI) capture is supported, as well as real-time transco ...

.Ingex Studio - Multi-camera Tapeless Recording
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Network transmission

SMPTE 2022 and 2110 are standards for professional digital video over

IP network The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

s. SMPTE 2022 includes provisions for both compressed and uncompressed video formats. SMPTE 2110 carries uncompressed video, audio, and

ancillary data Ancillary data is data that has been added to given data and uses the same form of transport. Common examples are cover art images for media files or streams, or digital data added to radio or television broadcasts. Television Ancillary data (commo ...

as separate

streams A stream is a continuous body of surface water flowing within the bed and banks of a channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to by a variety of local or regional names. Long large streams ...

. Wireless interfaces such as

Wireless LAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office building ...

(WLAN,

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio w ...

WiDi Wireless Display (WiDi) is technology developed by Intel that enables users to stream music, movies, photos, videos and apps without wires from a compatible computer to a compatible HDTV or through the use of an adapter with other HDTVs or monito ...

, and Wireless Home Digital Interface can be used to transmit uncompressed standard definition (SD) video but not HD video because the HD bit rates would exceed the network bandwidth. HD can be transmitted using higher speed interfaces such as

WirelessHD WirelessHD, also known as UltraGig, is a proprietary standard owned by Silicon Image (originally SiBeam) for wireless transmission of high-definition video content for consumer electronics products. The consortium currently has over 40 adopters; ...

and WiGig. In all cases, when video is conveyed over a network, communication disruptions or diminished bandwidth can corrupt the video or prevent its transmission.

Data rates

Uncompressed video has a constant bitrate that is based on pixel representation, image resolution, and frame rate: :

data rate Data rate and data transfer rate can refer to several related and overlapping concepts in communications networks: Achieved rate * Bit rate, the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time ** Data signaling rate or gross bit rate ...

= color depth × vertical resolution × horizontal resolution ×

refresh frequency The refresh rate (or "vertical refresh rate", "vertical scan rate", terminology originating with the cathode ray tubes) is the number of times per second that a raster-based display device displays a new image. This is independent from frame rate ...

For example: *16-bit, 480i @ 24 fps: 16 × × 24 = 58.9

Mbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mul ...

*24-bit, 480p @ 30 fps: 24 × × 30 = 221 Mbit/s. *24-bit, 720p @ 30 fps: 24 × × 30 = 663 Mbit/s. *24-bit, 720p @ 60 fps: 24 × × 60 = 1.32

Gbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mul ...

*24-bit, 1080i @ 60 fps: 24 × × 60 = 1.49 Gbit/s. *24-bit, 1080p @ 60 fps: 24 × × 60 = 2.98 Gbit/s. *24-bit,

4K UHD 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K UHD) is the dominan ...

@ 60 fps: 24 × × 60 = 11.9 Gbit/s. *24-bit, 4K UHD@ 120 fps: 24 × × 120 = 23.8 Gbit/s. *

48-bit In computer architecture, 48-bit integers can represent 281,474,976,710,656 (248 or 2.814749767×1014) discrete values. This allows an unsigned binary integer range of 0 through 281,474,976,710,655 (248 − 1) or a signed two's complement ra ...

DCI 4K 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K UHD) is the dominan ...

@ 144 fps: 48 × × 144 = 61.1 Gbit/s. The actual data rate may be higher because some transmission media for uncompressed video require defined blanking intervals, which effectively add unused pixels around the visible image.

Notes

References

External links