A Brief History of Digital Video

IN THE A BRIEF HISTORY BEGINNING ... was the Ampex Quadruplex, the first successful video tape format. Released in 1956, it finally made video recordings "portable." Although, with its 2" wide tape and mammoth docking bays, it was a far cry from today's thumb-sized storage devices and digital formats. OF DIGITAL VIDEO What followed.. over the course of 3.5 decades was a series of analog video formats, from Betamax to JVC's failed analog HDTV cassette, W-VHS. During that time, digital storage was created in the form of digital casettes, laserdisc, and DVD. This all set the stage for modern digital formats. VIDEO COMPRESSION THE FILETYPES WE USE THE EVOLUTION OF COMPRESSION STANDARDS EVERY DAY H.120 1984 The first digital video standard was created by International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication Standardization THE FIRST DIGITAL VIDEO Sector, to get researchers on the same page with video encoding. Researchers quickly learned that in order to stream video at a usable bitrate, groups of pixels would have to be coded together. This led to future standards, which finally compressed video practically. STANDARD BITRATE: 2 Mbit/s RESOLUTION: 176 x 144 (30 frames/sec in black & white) Developed in 1988 by the International Telecommunication Union, H.261 is the first major digital video compression standard, and what most video standards and codecs were originally based on. Н.261 1988 This is was a historic milestone in digital video as the H.120 was not adequate quality for any real adoption. THE BASIS OF ALL MODERN VIDEO STANDARDS ARRIVES BITRATE: 40 Kbit/s - 2 Mbit/s Developed by the Movie Picture Experts Group, the MPEG-1 standard was designed for compressing VHS-quality video and compact discs down to 1.5 Mbits. RESOLUTION: 352 x 288 MPEG defined strictly how the bitstreaming and decoding of video files should be, but left the method of compressing and encoding video down open ended, which led to various encoders of varying efficiencies being developed based on this standard. MPEG-1 1991 MPEG HITS THE SCENE 1992 Released in 1992, AVI was launched by Microsoft to be its video container for Windows. Due to its many limitations, including a lack of aspect ratio information, it has largely been replaced by WMV, part of the ASF container format. AVI (AUDIO VIDEO INTERLEAVE) BITRATE: 1.5 Mbit/s RESOLUTION: 352 x 288 MPEG-2, aka H.262, is developed jointly with ITU. It offers better resolution and higher bit rates, and became the standard video codec used by DVD and digital TV. MPEG-2 (H.262) 1994 It evolved out of MPEG-1's shortcomings, mainly the lack of an easy way to encode higher resolution video, only 2 audio channels, one only color space, and lack of standardized support for interlaced video. MPEG AND ITU JOIN FORCES, DECENT VIDEO EMERGES (THE NEXT ITERATION, H.263, QUICKLY FOLLOWS) BITRATE: 9.8 Mbit/s Based on the H.263 standard, Real Networks' proprietary container, RM can hold Real Audio or Real Video files (RV). Real Video was released in 1997 for RESOLUTION: RM 720 x 480 (and lower) (REAL MEDIA) streaming media over the web. 1997 MPEG-4, H.264, VC-1 MPEG-4 was developed for better support for features like 3D rendering, digital rights management, and high resolution. 1998 MASSIVE DivX, Xvid and other formats emerge based on the MPEG-4 (Part 2) LEAPS IN standard. MPEG-4 (Part 10) and H.264 and Microsoft's VC-1 all emerge as standards that become part of Blu-Ray and HDTV. QUALITY AS MPEG-4 AND BITRATE: up to 960 Mbit/s STANDARDS HI-DEF VOB is the container format for DVDS. Based on MPEG, it can contain video, audio, subtitles, and menus. It has limitations around private streams, or non-standard data (since it is used in physical media sold commercially). VOB DEVELOP (DVD VIDEO OBJECT) RESOLUTION: up to 4096 x 2048 ASF is Microsoft's competitor container format to QuickTime (MOV) and OGG. Specifically designed for streaming media, it is the container for WMV, which has become a standard for High Definition and Blu-Ray video. Photo via Creative Commons ASF (ADVANCED SYSTEMS FORMAT) 2001 A free, open container for video, 0GG started as an audio project in 1994 (called Squish) and launched as OGG in 2001. Though not as popular as MP4 and others, OGG has become a popular standard for playing online video in HTML5 - Flash not required. MP4 is a standard container for streaming MPEG-4 Part 14 video. It was based directly on Quicktime's format, but provides support for additional MPEG features like Initial Object Descriptors. OGG MP4 (MPEG) (OPEN STANDARD) Released in 2003 as an outgrowth of the video features of Flash SWF files, FLV is used to deliver MPEG video through Flash Player, and has been accepted as the default video format on many websites. However, Apple IOS devices don't support Flash or FLV. Apple Computer Company's proprietary video format was developed as a moderm answer to AVI - primarily for desktop video. What makes MOV unique is it separates data from track edit lists and media offsets, making it capable of importing and editing in place. FLV MOV (QUICKTIME) (FLASH VIDEO) An open, free container format with the ability to hold an unlimited number of video, audio, photo or subtitle tacks in one file. In 2010 it was announced that WebM format (used for Used on mobile devices such as 3G phones, 3GP was developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project as part of an effort to set specifications and standards for mobile MKV (Matroska Multimedia Container) 3GP (THIRD GENERATION PARTNERSHIP) HTML5 video) would be based on the Matroska container format. telecommunications. real Player Provided by www.real.com/resources