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Everything You Wanted To Know About Codecs And Why They Matter

Sep 2, 2014 by Udi Tirosh Leave a Comment

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If you’ve done any video work in your life, there is more than a slight chance that you were staring at Adobe Premiere (or Avid, Or Final Cut) export screen and drooling a bit while you were trying to understand what the heck all those dials on the screen mean.

David Kong just release what I would as the best primer to codecs I have ever seen.

David covers everything from what codecs are (compression and decompression); what is the difference between a codec and a container; what are the pros and cons of using each codec and touches a bit about his workflow.

While there is not a single codec that you can choose and forget about it, there are several reasons to prefer a codec for different stages of a project.

Luckily, David pulls frames into photoshop to break down each concept which I find really helpful. Here is the complete agenda:

  • What a codec is – And how it differs from a container.
  • Different types of codecs – And why I frequently use 4 different codecs on a single project.
  • Bit Depth – What it means and why it matters.
  • Chroma Subsampling – 4:4:4, 4:2:2, and 4:2:0, and when it becomes an issue.
  • Spatial Compression and Blocking – One of the most common artefacts you see with normal work.
  • Temporal Compression – Long-GOP codecs, inter-frame compression, and ALL-I codecs.
  • Lossless vs. Lossy compression – How image compression differs from data compression.
  • Bit Rate – How to calculate bit rates and the differences between kbps/kBps/Mbps/MBps.
  • Raw – Briefly, the difference between Raw, compressed, and uncompressed (this could have been a 40-minute tutorial on its own!)

Another video discussing the practicals of using codecs and how to face the dreadful export screen coming soon.

[How Codecs Work | David Kong via philipbloom]

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Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: codecs, David Kong, digital video, Video, video editing, workflow

About Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

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