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Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (
video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...
) in the form of encoded
digital data Digital data, in information theory and information systems, is information represented as a string of Discrete mathematics, discrete symbols, each of which can take on one of only a finite number of values from some alphabet (formal languages ...
. This is in contrast to
analog video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...
, which represents moving visual images in the form of
analog signal An analog signal (American English) or analogue signal (British and Commonwealth English) is any continuous-time signal representing some other quantity, i.e., ''analogous'' to another quantity. For example, in an analog audio signal, the ins ...
s. Digital video comprises a series of
digital image A digital image is an image composed of picture elements, also known as pixels, each with '' finite'', '' discrete quantities'' of numeric representation for its intensity or gray level that is an output from its two-dimensional functions f ...
s displayed in rapid succession, usually at 24, 30, or 60 frames per second. Digital video has many advantages such as easy copying, multicasting, sharing and storage. Digital video was first introduced commercially in 1986 with the Sony D1 format, which recorded an uncompressed
standard-definition Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high-definition television, high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a ...
component video Component video is an analog video signal that has been split into two or more component channels. In popular use, it refers to a type of component analog video (CAV) information that is transmitted or stored as three separate signals. Compo ...
signal in digital form. In addition to uncompressed formats, popular compressed digital video formats today include H.264 and
MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...
. Modern interconnect standards used for playback of digital video include
HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, gam ...
,
DisplayPort DisplayPort (DP) is a digital interface used to connect a video source, such as a Personal computer, computer, to a display device like a Computer monitor, monitor. Developed by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA), it can also car ...
,
Digital Visual Interface Digital Visual Interface (DVI) is a video display interface developed by the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG). The digital interface is used to connect a video source, such as a video display controller, to a display device, such as a co ...
(DVI) and
serial digital interface Serial digital interface (SDI) is a family of digital video Interface (computing), interfaces first standardized by SMPTE (The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) in 1989. For example, ITU-R BT.656 and SMPTE 259M define digital ...
(SDI). Digital video can be copied and reproduced with no degradation in quality. In contrast, when analog sources are copied, they experience
generation loss Generation loss is the loss of quality between subsequent copies or transcodes of data. Anything that reduces the quality of the representation when copying, and would cause further reduction in quality on making a copy of the copy, can be con ...
. Digital video can be stored on digital media such as
Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...
, on
computer data storage Computer data storage or digital data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and Data storage, recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The cent ...
, or
streamed Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downloadin ...
over the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
to
end user In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ultimately use a product. The end user stands in contrast to users who support or maintain the product, such as sysops, system administrato ...
s who watch content on a personal computer or mobile device screen or a digital
smart TV A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV or, rarely, CoTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features that allow users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart T ...
. Today, digital video content such as
TV show A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platfo ...
s and
movie A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
s also includes a
digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital signal (signal processing), digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical sampling (signal processing), ...
soundtrack.


History


Digital video cameras

The basis for
digital video camera A video camera is an Optics, optical instrument that captures videos, as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on Film stock, film. Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for ...
s is
metal–oxide–semiconductor upright=1.3, Two power MOSFETs in amperes">A in the ''on'' state, dissipating up to about 100 watt">W and controlling a load of over 2000 W. A matchstick is pictured for scale. In electronics, the metal–oxide–semiconductor field- ...
(MOS)
image sensors An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to form an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of curren ...
. The first practical
semiconductor A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping level ...
image sensor was the
charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
(CCD), invented in 1969 by Willard S. Boyle, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in physics. Following the commercialization of CCD sensors during the late 1970s to early 1980s, the
entertainment industry Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and Interest (emotion), interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have deve ...
slowly began transitioning to
digital imaging Digital imaging or digital image acquisition is the creation of a digital representation of the visual characteristics of an object, such as a physical scene or the interior structure of an object. The term is often assumed to imply or include ...
and digital video from analog video over the next two decades. The CCD was followed by the
CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss ", , ) is a type of MOSFET, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication, fabrication process that uses complementary an ...
active-pixel sensor An active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor, which was invented by Peter J.W. Noble in 1968, where each pixel sensor unit cell has a photodetector (typically a pinned photodiode) and one or more active transistors. In a metal–oxide–semico ...
(
CMOS sensor An active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor, which was invented by Peter J.W. Noble in 1968, where each pixel sensor unit cell has a photodetector (typically a pinned photodiode) and one or more active transistors. In a metal–oxide–semic ...
), developed in the 1990s. Major films shot on digital video overtook those shot on film in 2013. Since 2016 over 90% of major films were shot on digital video. , 92% of films are shot on digital. Only 24 major films released in 2018 were shot on 35mm. Today, cameras from companies like
Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
,
Panasonic is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturer, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Kadoma, Japan. It was founded in 1918 as in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Fukushima by Kōnosuke Matsushita. The company was incorporated in 1935 and renamed and c ...
,
JVC JVC (short for Japan Victor Company) is a Japanese brand owned by JVCKenwood. Founded in 1927 as the Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan and later as , the company was best known for introducing Japan's first televisions and for developin ...
and
Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...
offer a variety of choices for shooting high-definition video. At the high-end of the market, there has been an emergence of cameras aimed specifically at the digital cinema market. These cameras from
Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
,
Vision Research ''Vision Research'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal specializing in the neuroscience and psychology of the visual system The visual system is the physiological basis of visual perception (the ability to perception, detect and process ...
,
Arri Arri Group () (stylized as "ARRI") is a German manufacturer of motion picture film equipment. Based in Munich, the company was founded in 1917. It produces professional motion picture cameras, lenses, lighting and post-production equipment. It ...
, Silicon Imaging,
Panavision Panavision Inc. is an American motion picture equipment company (law), company founded in 1954 specializing in cameras and photographic lens, lenses, based in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk a ...
, Grass Valley and
Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...
offer resolution and
dynamic range Dynamics (from Greek δυναμικός ''dynamikos'' "powerful", from δύναμις ''dynamis'' " power") or dynamic may refer to: Physics and engineering * Dynamics (mechanics), the study of forces and their effect on motion Brands and ent ...
that exceeds that of traditional video cameras, which are designed for the limited needs of
broadcast television Broadcast television systems (or terrestrial television systems outside the US and Canada) are the encoding or formatting systems for the transmission and reception of terrestrial television signals. Analog television systems were standardized ...
.


Digital video coding

In the 1970s,
pulse-code modulation Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the amplitud ...
(PCM) induced the birth of digital
video coding A video coding format (or sometimes video compression format) is a content representation format of digital video content, such as in a data file or bitstream. It typically uses a standardized video compression algorithm, most commonly based on ...
, demanding high bitrates of 45-140 Mbps for
standard-definition Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high-definition television, high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a ...
(SD) content. By the 1980s, the
discrete cosine transform A discrete cosine transform (DCT) expresses a finite sequence of data points in terms of a sum of cosine functions oscillating at different frequency, frequencies. The DCT, first proposed by Nasir Ahmed (engineer), Nasir Ahmed in 1972, is a widely ...
(DCT) became the standard for digital
video compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...
. The first digital
video coding standard A video coding format (or sometimes video compression format) is a content representation format of digital video content, such as in a data file or bitstream. It typically uses a standardized video compression algorithm, most commonly based on ...
was H.120, created by the (International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee) or
CCITT The International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three Sectors (branches) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is responsible for coordinating standards for telecommunicat ...
(now ITU-T) in 1984. H.120 was not practical due to weak performance. H.120 was based on
differential pulse-code modulation Differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM) is a signal encoder that uses the baseline of pulse-code modulation (PCM) but adds some functionalities based on the prediction of the samples of the signal. The input can be an analog signal or a Digital ...
(DPCM), a compression algorithm that was inefficient for video coding. During the late 1980s, a number of companies began experimenting with DCT, a much more efficient form of compression for video coding. The CCITT received 14 proposals for DCT-based video compression formats, in contrast to a single proposal based on
vector quantization Vector quantization (VQ) is a classical quantization technique from signal processing that allows the modeling of probability density functions by the distribution of prototype vectors. Developed in the early 1980s by Robert M. Gray, it was ori ...
(VQ) compression. The H.261 standard was developed based on DCT compression, becoming first practical video coding standard. Since H.261, DCT compression has been adopted by all the major video coding standards that followed.
MPEG-1 MPEG-1 is a Technical standard, standard for lossy compression of video and Audio frequency, audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to about 1.5 Mbit/s (26:1 and 6:1 compression ratios respectively ...
, developed by the
Motion Picture Experts Group 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 ...
(MPEG), followed in 1991, and it was designed to compress
VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...
-quality video. It was succeeded in 1994 by
MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...
/ H.262, which became the standard video format for
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
and SD
digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using Digital signal, digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an ...
. It was followed by
MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...
in 1999, and then in 2003 it was followed by H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, which has become the most widely used video coding standard. The current-generation video coding format is
HEVC High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In co ...
(H.265), introduced in 2013. While AVC uses the integer DCT with 4x4 and 8x8 block sizes, HEVC uses integer DCT and DST transforms with varied block sizes between 4x4 and 32x32. HEVC is heavily patented, with the majority of patents belonging to
Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEC; stylized as SΛMSUNG; ) is a South Korean multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation founded on 13 January 1969 and headquartered in Yeongtong District, Suwon, South Korea. It is curr ...
, GE, NTT and
JVC Kenwood , stylized as JVCKENWOOD, is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It was formed from the merger of Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC) and Kenwood Corporation on October 1, 2008. ...
. It is currently being challenged by the aiming-to-be-freely-licensed
AV1 AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format initially designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It was developed as a successor to VP9 by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium founded in 2015 tha ...
format. , AVC is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression and distribution of video content, used by 91% of video developers, followed by HEVC which is used by 43% of developers.


Digital video production

Starting in the late 1970s to the early 1980s,
video production Video production is the process of producing video content. It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with video recorded either as analog signals on videotape, digitally in video tape or as computer files stored on optical discs, hard drives, SSDs, ...
equipment that was digital in its internal workings was introduced. These included
time base corrector Time base correction (TBC) is a technique to reduce or eliminate errors caused by mechanical instability present in analog recordings on mechanical media. Without time base correction, a signal from a videotape recorder (VTR) or videocassette re ...
s (TBC) and digital video effects (DVE) units. They operated by taking a standard analog
composite video Composite video, also known as CVBS (composite video baseband signal or color, video, blanking and sync), is an analog video format that combines image information—such as brightness (luminance), color (chrominance), and synchronization, int ...
input and digitizing it internally. This made it easier to either correct or enhance the video signal, as in the case of a TBC, or to manipulate and add effects to the video, in the case of a DVE unit. The digitized and processed video information was then converted back to standard analog video for output. Later on in the 1970s, manufacturers of professional video broadcast equipment, such as Bosch (through their
Fernseh Fernseh AG was a German television company headquartered in Berlin. Founded in 1929, it did research and manufacturing of television equipment. Etymology The company name "Fernseh AG" is a compound of ''Fernsehen'' ‘television’ and ''Aktien ...
division) and
Ampex Ampex Data Systems Corporation is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name ''AMPEX'' is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excell ...
developed prototype digital
videotape recorder A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and playback video and audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. They were u ...
s (VTR) in their research and development labs. Bosch's machine used a modified 1-inch type B videotape transport and recorded an early form of
CCIR 601 ITU-R Recommendation BT.601, more commonly known by the abbreviations Rec. 601 or BT.601 (or its former name CCIR 601), is a standard originally issued in 1982 by the Comité consultatif international pour la radio, CCIR (an organizati ...
digital video. Ampex's prototype digital video recorder used a modified 2-inch quadruplex videotape VTR (an Ampex AVR-3) fitted with custom digital video electronics and a special ''octaplex'' 8-head headwheel (regular analog 2" quad machines only used 4 heads). Like standard 2" quad, the audio on the Ampex prototype digital machine, nicknamed ''Annie'' by its developers, still recorded the audio in analog as linear tracks on the tape. None of these machines from these manufacturers were ever marketed commercially. Digital video was first introduced commercially in 1986 with the Sony D1 format, which recorded an uncompressed standard definition
component video Component video is an analog video signal that has been split into two or more component channels. In popular use, it refers to a type of component analog video (CAV) information that is transmitted or stored as three separate signals. Compo ...
signal in digital form. Component video connections required 3 cables, but most
television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
facilities were wired for composite NTSC or PAL video using one cable. Due to this incompatibility the cost of the recorder, D1 was used primarily by large
television network A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television show, television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or ...
s and other component-video capable video studios. In 1988, Sony and Ampex co-developed and released the D2 digital videocassette format, which recorded video digitally without compression in ITU-601 format, much like D1. In comparison, D2 had the major difference of encoding the video in composite form to the NTSC standard, thereby only requiring single-cable composite video connections to and from a D2 VCR. This made it a perfect fit for the majority of television facilities at the time. D2 was a successful format in the television broadcast industry throughout the late '80s and the '90s. D2 was also widely used in that era as the master tape format for mastering laserdiscs. D1 & D2 would eventually be replaced by cheaper systems using
video compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...
, most notably Sony's
Digital Betacam Betacam is a family of half-inch professional videocassette products developed by Sony in 1982. In colloquial use, ''Betacam'' singly is often used to refer to a Betacam camcorder, a Betacam tape, a Betacam video recorder or the format itself. ...
, that were introduced into the network's
television studio A television studio, also called a television production studio, is an installation room in which video productions take place, either for the production of live television and its recording onto video tape or other media such as SSDs, or for ...
s. Other examples of digital video formats utilizing compression were Ampex's DCT (the first to employ such when introduced in 1992), the industry-standard DV and MiniDV and its professional variations, Sony's
DVCAM DV (from ''Digital Video'') is a family of codecs and tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. It includes the recording or cassette formats DV, MiniD ...
and Panasonic's
DVCPRO DV (from ''Digital Video'') is a family of codecs and tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. It includes the recording or cassette formats DV, Mini ...
, and
Betacam SX Betacam is a family of half-inch professional videocassette products developed by Sony in 1982. In colloquial use, ''Betacam'' singly is often used to refer to a Betacam camcorder, a Betacam tape, a Betacam video recorder or the format itself. ...
, a lower-cost variant of Digital Betacam using
MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...
compression. One of the first digital video products to run on personal computers was ''PACo: The PICS Animation Compiler'' from The Company of Science & Art in Providence, RI. It was developed starting in 1990 and first shipped in May 1991. PACo could stream unlimited-length video with synchronized sound from a single file (with the ''.CAV''
file extension File or filing may refer to: Mechanical tools and processes * File (tool), a tool used to remove fine amounts of material from a workpiece. ** Filing (metalworking), a material removal process in manufacturing ** Nail file, a tool used to gen ...
) on CD-ROM. Creation required a Mac, and playback was possible on Macs, PCs, and Sun
SPARCstation The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines are a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and server (computing), servers in desktop, desk side (pedestal) and rack-based form factor configurations, that were developed and sol ...
s.
QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...
,
Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Co ...
's multimedia framework, was released in June 1991.
Audio Video Interleave Audio Video Interleave (also Audio Video Interleaved and known by its initials and filename extension AVI, usually pronounced ) is a proprietary multimedia container format and Windows standard introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as p ...
from
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
followed in 1992. Initial consumer-level content creation tools were crude, requiring an analog video source to be digitized to a computer-readable format. While low-quality at first, consumer digital video increased rapidly in quality, first with the introduction of playback standards such as
MPEG-1 MPEG-1 is a Technical standard, standard for lossy compression of video and Audio frequency, audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to about 1.5 Mbit/s (26:1 and 6:1 compression ratios respectively ...
and
MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...
(adopted for use in television transmission and
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
media), and the introduction of the DV tape format allowing recordings in the format to be transferred directly to digital video files using a
FireWire IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony a ...
port on an editing computer. This simplified the process, allowing
non-linear editing system Non-linear editing (NLE) is a form of offline editing for audio, video, and image editing. In offline editing, the original content is not modified in the course of editing. In non-linear editing, edits are specified and modified by speciali ...
s (NLE) to be deployed cheaply and widely on
desktop computer A desktop computer, often abbreviated as desktop, is a personal computer designed for regular use at a stationary location on or near a desk (as opposed to a portable computer) due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuratio ...
s with no external playback or recording equipment needed. The widespread adoption of digital video and accompanying compression formats has reduced the bandwidth needed for a
high-definition video High-definition video (HD video) is video of higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. While there is no standardized meaning for ''high-definition'', generally any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines ( ...
signal (with
HDV HDV is a format for recording of high-definition video on DV (video format), DV videocassette Videotape, tape. Conceived as an affordable high definition format for digital camcorders, HDV quickly caught on with many amateur and professional vi ...
and
AVCHD AVCHD (Advanced Video Coding High Definition) is a file-based format for the digital recording and playback of high-definition video. It is H.264 and Dolby AC-3 packaged into the MPEG transport stream, with a set of constraints designed around cam ...
, as well as several commercial variants such as
DVCPRO DV (from ''Digital Video'') is a family of codecs and tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. It includes the recording or cassette formats DV, Mini ...
-HD, all using less bandwidth than a standard definition analog signal). These savings have increased the number of channels available on
cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...
and
direct broadcast satellite Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location.ITU Radio Regulations, Section IV. Radio Stations and Systems ...
systems, created opportunities for
spectrum reallocation The 2016 United States wireless spectrum auction, officially known as Auction 1001, allocated approximately 100 MHz of the United States Ultra High Frequency (UHF) spectrum formerly allocated to UHF television in the 600 MHz band. The sp ...
of
terrestrial television Terrestrial television, or over-the-air television (OTA) is a type of television broadcasting in which the content is signal transmission, transmitted via radio waves from the terrestrial (Earth-based) transmitter of a TV station to a TV rece ...
broadcast frequencies, and made
tapeless camcorder A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video camera, video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right s ...
s based on
flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...
possible, among other innovations and efficiencies.


Digital video and culture

Culturally, digital video has allowed video and film to become widely available and popular, beneficial to entertainment, education, and research. Digital video is increasingly common in schools, with students and teachers taking an interest in learning how to use it in relevant ways. Digital video also has healthcare applications, allowing doctors to track infant heart rates and oxygen levels. In addition, the switch from analog to digital video impacted media in various ways, such as in how businesses use cameras for surveillance.
Closed circuit television Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...
(CCTV) switched to using
digital video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR), also referred to as a personal video recorder (PVR) particularly in Canadian and British English, is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SS ...
s (DVR), presenting the issue of how to store recordings for evidence collection. Today, digital video is able to be compressed in order to save storage space.


Digital television

Digital Television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using Digital signal, digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an ...
, also known as DTV, is the production and transmission of digital video from networks to consumers. This technique uses digital encoding instead of analog signals used prior to the 1950s. As compared to analog methods, DTV is faster and provides more capabilities and options for data to be transmitted and shared. Digital television's roots are tied to the availability of inexpensive, high performance
computers A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ('' computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as ''programs'', ...
. It was not until the 1990s that digital TV became a real possibility. Digital television was previously not practically feasible due to the impractically high
bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
requirements of
uncompressed 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-pur ...
, requiring around 200
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 multi ...
for a
standard-definition television Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a similar resolution to the ...
(SDTV) signal, and over 1
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 mu ...
for
high-definition television High-definition television (HDTV) describes a television or video system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since at least 1933; in more recent times, it ref ...
(HDTV).


Overview

Digital video comprises a series of
digital image A digital image is an image composed of picture elements, also known as pixels, each with '' finite'', '' discrete quantities'' of numeric representation for its intensity or gray level that is an output from its two-dimensional functions f ...
s displayed in rapid succession. In the context of video, these images are called frames. The rate at which frames are displayed is known as the
frame rate Frame rate, most commonly expressed in frame/s, or FPS, is typically the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (Film frame, frames) are captured or displayed. This definition applies to film and video cameras, computer animation, and moti ...
and is measured in frames per second (FPS). Every frame is a digital image and so comprises a formation of
pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...
s. The color of a pixel is represented by a fixed number of bits of that color where the information of the color is stored within the image. For example, 8-bit captures 256 levels per channel, and 10-bit captures 1,024 levels per channel. The more bits, the more subtle variations of colors can be reproduced. This is called the
color depth Color depth, also known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to indicate the color of a single pixel, or the number of bits used for each color component of a single pixel. When referring to a pixel, the concept can be defined as bit ...
, or bit depth, of the video.


Interlacing

In
interlaced video Interlaced video (also known as interlaced scan) is a technique for doubling the perceived frame rate of a video display without consuming extra Bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth. The interlaced signal contains two field (video), fields ...
each ''frame'' is composed of two halves of an image. The first half contains only the odd-numbered lines of a full frame. The second half contains only the even-numbered lines. These halves are referred to individually as ''fields''. Two consecutive fields compose a full frame. If an interlaced video has a frame rate of 30 frames per second the field rate is 60 fields per second, though both part of interlaced video, frames per second and fields per second are separate numbers.


Bit rate and BPP

By definition,
bit rate In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable ''R'') is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. The bit rate is expressed in the unit bit per second (symbol: bit/s), often in conjunction ...
is a measurement of the rate of information content from the digital video stream. In the case of uncompressed video, bit rate corresponds directly to the quality of the video because bit rate is proportional to every property that affects the
video quality Video quality is a characteristic of a video passed through a video transmission or processing system that describes perceived video degradation (typically compared to the original video). Video processing systems may introduce some amount of disto ...
. Bit rate is an important property when transmitting video because the transmission link must be capable of supporting that bit rate. Bit rate is also important when dealing with the storage of video because, as shown above, the video size is proportional to the bit rate and the duration.
Video compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...
is used to greatly reduce the bit rate while having little effect on quality. Bits per pixel (BPP) is a measure of the efficiency of compression. A true-color video with no compression at all may have a BPP of 24 bits/pixel.
Chroma subsampling Chroma subsampling is the practice of encoding images by implementing less resolution for Chrominance, chroma information than for luma (video), luma information, taking advantage of the human visual system's lower acuity for color differences t ...
can reduce the BPP to 16 or 12 bits/pixel. Applying
JPEG JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...
compression on every frame can reduce the BPP to 8 or even 1 bits/pixel. Applying video compression algorithms like MPEG1,
MPEG2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...
or
MPEG4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related te ...
allows for fractional BPP values to exist.


Constant bit rate versus variable bit rate

BPP represents the ''average'' bits per pixel. There are compression algorithms that keep the BPP almost constant throughout the entire duration of the video. In this case, we also get video output with a
constant bitrate Constant bitrate (CBR) is a term used in telecommunications, relating to the quality of service. Compare with variable bitrate. When referring to codecs, constant bit rate encoding means that the rate at which a codec's output data should be con ...
(CBR). This CBR video is suitable for real-time, non-buffered, fixed bandwidth video streaming (e.g. in videoconferencing). Since not all frames can be compressed at the same level, because quality is more severely impacted for scenes of high complexity, some algorithms try to constantly adjust the BPP. They keep the BPP high while compressing complex scenes and low for less demanding scenes. This way, it provides the best quality at the smallest average bit rate (and the smallest file size, accordingly). This method produces a
variable bitrate Variable bitrate (VBR) is a term used in telecommunications and computing that relates to the bitrate used in sound or video encoding. As opposed to constant bitrate (CBR), VBR files vary the amount of output data per time segment. VBR allows ...
because it tracks the variations of the BPP.


Technical overview

Standard
film stock Film stock is an analog medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed, edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent pl ...
s typically record at 24
frames per second A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (co ...
. For video, there are two frame rate standards:
NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second ...
, at 30/1.001 (about 29.97) frames per second (about 59.94 fields per second), and
PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a color encoding system for analog television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
, 25 frames per second (50 fields per second). Digital video cameras come in two different image capture formats: interlaced and
progressive scan Progressive scanning (alternatively referred to as noninterlaced scanning) is a format of displaying, storing, or transmitting moving images in which all the lines of each frame are drawn in sequence. This is in contrast to interlaced video us ...
. Interlaced cameras record the image in alternating sets of lines: the odd-numbered lines are scanned, and then the even-numbered lines are scanned, then the odd-numbered lines are scanned again, and so on. One set of odd or even lines is referred to as a ''field'', and a consecutive pairing of two fields of opposite parity is called a ''frame''. Progressive scan cameras record all lines in each frame as a single unit. Thus, interlaced video captures the scene motion twice as often as progressive video does for the same frame rate. Progressive scan generally produces a slightly sharper image, however, motion may not be as smooth as interlaced video. Digital video can be copied with no generation loss; which degrades quality in analog systems. However, a change in parameters like frame size, or a change of the digital format can decrease the quality of the video due to
image scaling In computer graphics and digital imaging, image scaling refers to the resizing of a digital image. In video technology, the magnification of digital material is known as upscaling or resolution enhancement. When scaling a vector graphic image ...
and
transcoding Transcoding is the direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another, such as for video data files, audio files (e.g., MP3, WAV), or character encoding (e.g., UTF-8, ISO/IEC 8859). This is usually done in cases where a target ...
losses. Digital video can be manipulated and edited on
non-linear editing Non-linear editing (NLE) is a form of offline editing for audio, video, and image editing. In offline editing, the original content is not modified in the course of editing. In non-linear editing, edits are specified and modified by speciali ...
systems. Digital video has a significantly lower cost than 35 mm film. In comparison to the high cost of
film stock Film stock is an analog medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed, edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent pl ...
, the digital media used for digital video recording, such as
flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...
or
hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...
is very inexpensive. Digital video also allows footage to be viewed on location without the expensive and time-consuming chemical processing required by film. Network transfer of digital video makes physical deliveries of tapes and film reels unnecessary.
Digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using Digital signal, digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an ...
(including higher quality
HDTV High-definition television (HDTV) describes a television or video system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since at least 1933; in more recent times, it ref ...
) was introduced in most developed countries in early 2000s. Today, digital video is used in modern
mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...
s and
video conferencing Videotelephony (also known as videoconferencing or video calling) is the use of audio signal, audio and video for simultaneous two-way communication. Today, videotelephony is widespread. There are many terms to refer to videotelephony. ''Vide ...
systems. Digital video is used for
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
distribution of media, including
streaming video Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typical static broadcasting ...
and
peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network, forming a peer-to-peer network of Node ...
movie distribution. Many types of
video compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...
exist for serving digital video over the internet and on optical disks. The file sizes of digital video used for professional editing are generally not practical for these purposes, and the video requires further compression with codecs to be used for recreational purposes. , the highest
image resolution Image resolution is the level of detail of an image. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail. Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies ...
demonstrated for digital video generation is 132.7
megapixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...
s (15360 x 8640 pixels). The highest speed is attained in industrial and scientific
high-speed camera A high-speed camera is a device capable of capturing moving images with exposures of less than second or frame rates in excess of 250 frames per second. It is used for recording fast-moving objects as photographic images onto a storage medium ...
s that are capable of filming 1024x1024 video at up to 1 million frames per second for brief periods of recording.


Technical properties

Live digital video consumes
bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
. Recorded digital video consumes data storage. The amount of bandwidth or storage required is determined by the frame size, color depth and frame rate. Each pixel consumes a number of bits determined by the color depth. The data required to represent a frame of data is determined by multiplying by the number of pixels in the image. The bandwidth is determined by multiplying the storage requirement for a frame by the frame rate. The overall storage requirements for a program can then be determined by multiplying bandwidth by the duration of the program. These calculations are accurate for
uncompressed 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-pur ...
, but due to the relatively high bit rate of uncompressed video,
video compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...
is extensively used. In the case of compressed video, each frame requires only a small percentage of the original bits. This reduces the data or bandwidth consumption by a factor of 5 to 12 times when using
lossless compression Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statisti ...
, but more commonly,
lossy compression In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size ...
is used due to its reduction of data consumption by factors of 20 to 200. Note that it is not necessary that all frames are equally compressed by the same percentage. Instead, consider the ''average'' factor of compression for ''all'' the frames taken together.


Interfaces and cables

Purpose-built digital video interfaces *
Digital component video Digital component video is defined by the ITU-R BT.601 (formerly CCIR 601) standard and uses the Y'CbCr colorspace. The specific encoding of ITU-R BT.656 was used to transmit uncompressed analog standard-definition television component signals ...
*
Digital Visual Interface Digital Visual Interface (DVI) is a video display interface developed by the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG). The digital interface is used to connect a video source, such as a video display controller, to a display device, such as a co ...
(DVI) *
DisplayPort DisplayPort (DP) is a digital interface used to connect a video source, such as a Personal computer, computer, to a display device like a Computer monitor, monitor. Developed by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA), it can also car ...
* HDBaseT *
High-Definition Multimedia Interface High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, g ...
(HDMI) *
Unified Display Interface Unified Display Interface (UDI) was a digital video interface specification released in 2006 which was based on Digital Visual Interface (DVI). It was intended to be a lower cost implementation while providing compatibility with existing High-D ...
General-purpose interfaces use to carry digital video *
FireWire IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony a ...
(IEEE 1394) *
Universal Serial Bus Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...
(USB) The following interface has been designed for carrying
MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by International Organization for Standardization, ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC that sets standards for media coding, includ ...
-Transport compressed video: * DVB- ASI Compressed video is also carried using UDP- IP over
Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
. Two approaches exist for this: * Using RTP as a wrapper for video packets as with
SMPTE 2022 SMPTE 2022 is a standard from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) that describes how to send digital video over an IP network. Video formats supported include MPEG-2 and serial digital interface The standard was intr ...
* 1–7 MPEG Transport Packets are placed directly in the UDP packet Other methods of carrying video over IP * Network Device Interface *
SMPTE 2110 SMPTE 2110 is a suite of standards from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) that describes how to send digital media over an IP network. SMPTE 2110 is intended to be used within broadcast production and distribution fac ...


Storage formats


Encoding

*
CCIR 601 ITU-R Recommendation BT.601, more commonly known by the abbreviations Rec. 601 or BT.601 (or its former name CCIR 601), is a standard originally issued in 1982 by the Comité consultatif international pour la radio, CCIR (an organizati ...
used for broadcast stations * VC-2 also known as ''Dirac Pro'' *
MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...
good for online distribution of large videos and video recorded to
flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...
*
MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...
used for DVDs, Super-VCDs, and many broadcast television formats *
MPEG-1 MPEG-1 is a Technical standard, standard for lossy compression of video and Audio frequency, audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to about 1.5 Mbit/s (26:1 and 6:1 compression ratios respectively ...
used for video CDs * H.261 * H.263 * H.264 also known as ''MPEG-4 Part 10'', or as ''AVC'', used for
Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...
s and some broadcast television formats * H.265 also known as ''MPEG-H Part 2'', or as ''HEVC'' * MOV used for
QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...
framework *
Theora Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It was developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg contai ...
used for video on Wikipedia


Tapes

*
Betacam SX Betacam is a family of half-inch professional videocassette products developed by Sony in 1982. In colloquial use, ''Betacam'' singly is often used to refer to a Betacam camcorder, a Betacam tape, a Betacam video recorder or the format itself. ...
, Betacam IMX,
Digital Betacam Betacam is a family of half-inch professional videocassette products developed by Sony in 1982. In colloquial use, ''Betacam'' singly is often used to refer to a Betacam camcorder, a Betacam tape, a Betacam video recorder or the format itself. ...
, or DigiBeta — commercial video systems by
Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
, based on original
Betamax Betamax (also known as Beta, and stylized as the Greek letter Beta, β in its logo) is a discontinued consumer analog Videotape, video cassette recording format developed by Sony. It was one of the main competitors in the videotape format war ag ...
technology *
D-VHS D-VHS (short for Digital VHS) is a digital video recording format developed by JVC in collaboration with Hitachi, Matsushita, and Philips. Introduced in December 1997, it was designed to record digital video, including high-definition content ...
— MPEG-2 format data recorded on a tape similar to
S-VHS S-VHS, the common initialism for Super VHS, is an analog video cassette format introduced by JVC in 1987 as an improved version of the VHS (Video Home System) format. S-VHS improved image quality by increasing the bandwidth of the luminance ...
* D1, D2, D3, D5, D9 (also known as Digital-S) — various
SMPTE The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded by Charles Francis Jenkins in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and e ...
commercial digital video standards *
Digital8 Digital8 (or D8) is a consumer digital recording videocassette for camcorders developed by Sony, and introduced in 1999. The Digital8 format is a combination of the earlier analog Hi8 tape transport with the digital DV codec. Digital8 equipm ...
— DV-format data recorded on
Hi8 The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats. These are the original Video8 format (analog video and analog audio but with provision for digital audio), its improved variant Hi8, as well as a more recent digit ...
-compatible cassettes; largely a consumer format * DV,
MiniDV DV (from ''Digital Video'') is a family of codecs and Videotape, tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of camcorder, video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. It includes the recording or casse ...
— used in most of today's videotape-based consumer camcorders; designed for high quality and easy editing; can also record high-definition data (
HDV HDV is a format for recording of high-definition video on DV (video format), DV videocassette Videotape, tape. Conceived as an affordable high definition format for digital camcorders, HDV quickly caught on with many amateur and professional vi ...
) in MPEG-2 format *
DVCAM DV (from ''Digital Video'') is a family of codecs and tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. It includes the recording or cassette formats DV, MiniD ...
,
DVCPRO DV (from ''Digital Video'') is a family of codecs and tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. It includes the recording or cassette formats DV, Mini ...
— used in professional broadcast operations; similar to DV but generally considered more robust; though DV-compatible, these formats have better audio handling. *
DVCPRO DV (from ''Digital Video'') is a family of codecs and tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. It includes the recording or cassette formats DV, Mini ...
50 and
DVCPRO DV (from ''Digital Video'') is a family of codecs and tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. It includes the recording or cassette formats DV, Mini ...
HD support higher bandwidths as compared to Panasonic's DVCPRO. *
HDCAM HDCAM is a high-definition video digital recording videocassette version of Digital Betacam introduced in 1997 that uses an 8-bit discrete cosine transform (DCT) compressed 3:1:1 recording, in 1080i-compatible down-sampled resolution of 144 ...
was introduced by Sony as a high-definition alternative to DigiBeta. *
MicroMV MicroMV is a proprietary videotape format introduced in October 2001 by Sony. It is the smallest videotape format — 70% smaller than MiniDV or about the size of two US quarter coins; it is also smaller than a Digital8 or DV cassette and s ...
— MPEG-2-format data recorded on a very small, matchbook-sized cassette; obsolete * ProHD — name used by JVC for its MPEG-2-based professional camcorders


Discs

*
Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...
*
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
*
VCD Video CD (abbreviated as VCD, and also known as Compact Disc Digital Video), (not to be confused with CD Video which is a type of LaserDisc, Laserdisc) is a home video format and the first format for distributing films on standard optical di ...


See also

*
Digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital signal (signal processing), digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical sampling (signal processing), ...
*
Digital cinematography Digital cinematography is the process of capturing (recording) a film, motion picture using digital image sensors rather than through film stock. As digital technology has improved in recent years, this practice has become dominant. Since the 200 ...
*
Display aspect ratio The display aspect ratio (DAR) is the Aspect ratio (image), aspect ratio of a display device and so the proportional relationship between the display size, physical width and the height of the display. It is expressed as two numbers separated by a ...
*
Display resolution The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor, or other display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resoluti ...
*
Index of video-related articles The following is a list of video-related topics. Numbers * 3D computer graphics, 3D * aspect ratio (image), 4:3 * aspect ratio (image), 16:9 A-C * Academy Awards * Adobe Premiere—real time editing * Advanced Authoring Format AAF * alpha channel ...
*
Internet video Internet video (also known as online video) is digital video that is distributed over the internet. Internet video exists in several formats, the most notable being MPEG-4i AVC, AVCHD, FLV, and MP4. There are several online video hosting s ...
*
Online video platform An online video platform (OVP) enables users to upload, convert, store, and play back video content on the Internet, often via a private server structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally upload video content vi ...
*
Video coding format A video coding format (or sometimes video compression format) is a content representation format of digital video content, such as in a data file or bitstream. It typically uses a standardized video compression algorithm, most commonly based on ...
*
Video editing software Video editing software or a video editor is software used for performing the post-production video editing of digital video sequences on a non-linear editing system (NLE). It has replaced traditional flatbed celluloid film editing tools and analo ...
*
Webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in Videotelephony, video telephony, live streaming and social media, and Closed-circuit television, security. Webcams can b ...


Notes


References

* *


External links


The DV, DVCAM, & DVCPRO Formats – tech details, FAQ, and links


{{DEFAULTSORT:Digital Video Film and video technology Video signal Television terminology Audiovisual introductions in 1986 Film and video terminology pl:Digital video pt:Vídeo digital