What is a Codec?

Codec is a portmanteau of either "Compressor-Decompressor" or "Coder-Decoder,"

which describes a device or program capable of performing transformations on a data
stream or signal.

Codecs encode a stream or signal for transmission, storage or encryption and decode it
for viewing or editing. Codecs are often used in videoconferencing and streaming media
solutions. A video codec converts analog video signals from a video camera into digital
signals for transmission. It then converts the digital signals back to analog for display. An
audio codec converts analog audio signals from a microphone into digital signals for
transmission. It then converts the digital signals back to analog for playing.

The raw encoded form of audio and video data is often called essence, to distinguish it
from the metadata information that together make up the information content of the
stream and any "wrapper" data that is then added to aid access to or improve the
robustness of the stream.

Most codecs are lossy, in order to get a reasonably small file size. There are lossless
codecs as well, but for most purposes the almost imperceptible increase in quality is not
worth the considerable increase in data size. The main exception is if the data will
undergo more processing in the future, in which case the repeated lossy encoding would
damage the eventual quality too much.

Many multimedia data streams need to contain both audio and video data, and often
some form of metadata that permits synchronization of the audio and video. Each of
these three streams may be handled by different programs, processes, or hardware; but
for the multimedia data stream to be useful in stored or transmitted form, they must be
encapsulated together in a container format.

An endec is a similar (but not identical) concept for hardware.

Audio and Video Codecs (A/V codecs)

REDCODE RAW (.R3D)
RAW is a proprietary file format that efficiently encodes measurements from a camera’s
digital sensor in a way that maximizes post-production capabilities. It achieves this in
part by storing each of the sensor’s color channels separately, prior to conversion into a
full color image. Similar to the advantages that RAW files brought to stills photography,
this improves control over white balance, exposure and grading in post-production.
Furthermore, since such settings are appended to the file as metadata only, grading is
completely

ARRIRAW
Arriraw is a raw codec similar to CinemaDNG that contains unaltered Bayer sensor
information, the data stream from the camera can be recorded via T-link with certified
recorders like those from Codex Digital or Cineflow.
The ArriRaw format (along with the other recordable formats) contains static and
dynamic metadata. These are stored in the header of the file and can be extracted with
the free web tool metavisor[12] or with the application Meta Extract provided by Arri. Of
particular importance for visual effects are the lens metadata, which are stored only
when Arri's lens data system (LDS) is supported by the lens used.

CinemaDNG
CinemaDNG is the result of an Adobe-led initiative to define an industry-wide open file
format for digital cinema files. CinemaDNG caters for sets of movie clips, each of which
is a sequence of raw video images, accompanied by audio and metadata. CinemaDNG
supports stereoscopic cameras and multiple audio channels. CinemaDNG specifies
directory structures containing one or more video clips, and specifies requirements and
constraints for the open format files, (DNG, TIFF, XMP, and/or MXF), within those
directories, that contain the content of those clips.[2]

CinemaDNG is different from the Adobe DNG (Digital Negative) format that is primarily
used as a raw image format for still cameras. However, each CinemaDNG image is
encoded using that DNG image format. The image stream can then be stored in one of
two formats: either as video essence using frame-based wrapping in an MXF file, or as a
sequence of DNG image files in a specified file directory. Each clip uses just one of
these formats, but the set of clips in a movie may use both.

S-LOG and LOG- C

S- LOG (Sony Log) or Log-C (Arri, but Arri also can shoot S-log)
S-Log or Log-C mode to capture a cinema quality image and accomplish
negative film quality latitude. S-Log and Log-C mode captures an image with the
greatest amount of range in tonal reproduction and the lowest noise floor and
highest ceiling. What this means is you can shoot an image using S-Log or Log-
C and have the greatest amount of flexibility when entering the digital
intermediate phase of post-production. Using S-Log or Log-C shooting RAW files
using 4:4:4 compression creates a digital image that emulates the latitude of
negative film.

The image of negative film without color correction looks flat with only midtone
colors and little black and white within it. This is what the image will look like with
S-Log or Log-C applied because the greatest amount of tonal information is in
the midtone range of an image.

Rec. 709
is an ITU Recommendation, first introduced in 1990, that sets out the standards
for HDTV. Included in these standards is the Rec. 709 Color Space which is an
RGB color space that is identical to the sRGB color space.

LUTS
That is where a Look Up Tables, or LUTs, come into play. An LUT is a digital
process, either in the camera, in a mobile recording device, or in a digital
intermediate phase that creates a desired image using different exposures charts
and digital knees. Like an ENG or prosumer camera’s scene file, a LUT can
change the look of an image instantaneously. However, scene files will embed
into the image, and LUT acts as an overlay to an image where the raw S-
Log/Log-C is recorded and not the altered imaged.

AVI
Older codec, an acronym for Audio Video Interleave, is a multimedia container format
introduced by Microsoft in November 1992, as part of the Video for Windows technology.
AVI files contain both audio and video data in a standard container that allows
simultaneous playback. Most AVI files also use the file format extensions developed by
the Matrox OpenDML group in February 1996. These files are supported by Microsoft,
and are known unofficially as "AVI 2.0".

It is a special case of the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF), which divides the
file's data up into data blocks called "chunks". Each "chunk" is identified by a FourCC
tag. An AVI file takes the form of a single chunk in an RIFF formatted file, which is then
subdivided into two mandatory "chunks" and one optional "chunk".

The first sub-chunk is identified by the "hdrl" tag. This chunk is the file header and
contains metadata about the video such as the width, height and the number of frames.
The second sub-chunk is identified by the "movi" tag. This chunk contains the actual
audio/visual data that makes up the AVI movie. The third optional sub-chunk is identified
by the "idx1" tag and indexes the location of the data chunks within the file.

By way of the RIFF format, the audio/visual data contained in the "movi" chunk can be
encoded or decoded by a software module called a codec. The codec translates
between raw data and the data format inside the chunk. An AVI file may therefore carry
audio/visual data inside the chunks in almost any compression scheme, including: Full
Frames (Uncompressed), Intel Real Time Video, Indeo, Cinepak, Motion JPEG, Editable
MPEG, VDOWave, ClearVideo / RealVideo, QPEG, MPEG-4, XviD, DivX and others.

Cinepak
Cinepak is a video codec, developed by Radius Inc to accommodate 1x (150 kbyte/s)
CD-ROM transfer rates.

It was the primary video codec of early versions of QuickTime and Microsoft Video for
Windows, but was later superseded by Sorenson Video, Intel Indeo, and most recently
MPEG-4 and h.264. However, movies compressed with Cinepak are generally still
playable in most media players.

Cinepak is based on vector quantization, which is a significantly different algorithm from

the discrete cosine transform (DCT) algorithm used by most current codecs (in particular
the MPEG family, as well as JPEG). This permitted implementation on relatively slow
CPUs, but tended to result in blocky artifacting at low bitrates.
DivX®
DivX is a video codec created by DivX, Inc. (formerly DivXNetworks, Inc.), regarded for its ability
to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual
quality. DivX uses lossy MPEG-4 Part 2 compression, where quality is balanced against file size
for utility. It is one of several codecs commonly associated with ripping, where audio and video
multimedia are transferred to a hard disk and transcoded. As a result, DivX has been a center of
controversy because of its use in the replication and distribution of copyrighted DVDs.

Many newer "DivX Certified" DVD players are able to play DivX encoded movies, however,
"DivX" is not to be confused with "DIVX", an unrelated attempt at a new DVD rental system
employed by the US retailer Circuit City. Early versions of DivX included only a codec, and were
named "DivX ;-)", where the winking emoticon was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the failed DIVX
system.

DivX, XviD and 3ivx: Video codec packages basically using MPEG-4 Part 2 video codec, with the
*.avi, *.mp4, *.ogm or *.mkv file container formats.

DV
Digital Video (DV) is a video format launched in 1996, and, in its smaller tape form factor
MiniDV, has since become one of the standards for consumer and semiprofessional
video production. The DV specification (originally known as the Blue Book, current
official name IEC 61834) defines both the codec and the tape format. Features include
intraframe compression for uncomplicated editing, a standard interface for transfer to
non-linear editing systems (FireWire also known as IEEE 1394), and good video quality,
especially compared to earlier consumer analog formats such as 8 mm, Hi-8 and VHS-
C. DV now enables filmmakers to produce movies inexpensively, associated with no-
budget cinema.

There have been some variants on the DV standard, most notably the more professional
DVCAM and DVCPRO standards by Sony and Panasonic, respectively. Also, there is a
recent high-definition version called HDV, which is rather different on a technical level
since it only uses the DV and MiniDV tape form factor, but MPEG-2 for compression.

Video compression- DV uses DCT intraframe compression at a fixed bitrate of 25

megabits per second (25.146 Mbit/s), which, when added to the sound data (1.536
Mbit/s), the subcode data, error detection, and error correction (approx 8.7 Mbit/s)
amounts in all to roughly 3.6 megabytes per second (approx 35.382 Mbit/s) or one
Gigabyte every four minutes. At equal bitrates, DV performs somewhat better than the
older MJPEG codec, and is comparable to intraframe MPEG-2. (Note that many MPEG-
2 encoders for real-time acquisition applications do not use intraframe compression.)

Chroma subsampling - The chroma subsampling is 4:1:1 for NTSC or 4:2:0 for PAL,
which reduces the amount of color resolution stored. Therefore, not all analog formats
are outperformed by DV. The Betacam SP format, for example, can still be desirable
because it has similar color fidelity and no digital artifacts. The lower sampling of the
color space is also a reason why DV is sometimes avoided in applications where
chroma-key will be used. However, a large contingent feel the benefits (no generation
loss, small format, digital audio) are an acceptable tradeoff given the compromise in
color sampling rate.
Audio - DV allows either 2 digital audio channels (usually stereo) at 16 bit resolution and
48 kHz sampling rate, or 4 digital audio channels at 12 bit resolution and 32 kHz
sampling rate. For professional or broadcast applications, 48 kHz is used almost
exclusively. In addition, the DV spec includes the ability to record audio at 44.1 kHz (the
same sampling rate used for CD audio), although in practice this option is rarely used.
DVCAM and DVCPRO both use locked audio while standard DV does not. This means
that at any one point on a DV tape the audio may be +/- 1/3 frame out of sync with the
video. This is the maximum drift of the audio/video sync though it is not compounded
throughout the recording. In DVCAM and DVCPRO recordings the audio sync is
permanently linked to the video sync.

DVCAM
Sony's DVCAM is a semiprofessional variant of the DV standard that uses the same
cassettes as DV and MiniDV, but transports the tape 50% faster, leading to a higher
track width of 15 micrometres. The codec used is the same as DV, but because of the
greater track width available to the recorder the data are much more robust, producing
50% less errors known as dropouts. The LP mode of DV is not supported. All DVCAM
recorders and cameras can play back DV material, but DVCPRO support was only
recently added to some models. DVCAM tapes (or DV tapes recorded in DVCAM mode)
have their recording time reduced by one third. DVCAM is now also available in HD
mode.

DVCPRO
Panasonic specifically created the DVCPRO family for ENG use (NBC's newsgathering
division was a major customer), with better linear editing capabilities and robustness. It
has an even greater track width of 18 micrometres and uses another tape type (Metal
Particle instead of Metal Evaporated). Additionally, the tape has a longitudinal analog
audio cue track. Audio is only available in the 16 bit/48 kHz variant, there is no EP mode,
and DVCPRO always uses 4:1:1 color subsampling (even in PAL mode). Apart from
that, standard DVCPRO (also known as DVCPRO25) is otherwise identical to DV at a
bitstream level. However, unlike Sony, Panasonic chose to promote its DV variant for
professional high-end applications.

DVCPRO50 is often described as two DV-codecs in parallel. The DVCPRO50 standard

doubles the coded video bitrate from 25 Mbit/s to 50 Mbit/s, and improves color-
sampling resolution by using a 4:2:2 structure. DVCPRO50 was created for high-value
ENG compatibility. The higher datarate cuts recording-time in half (compared to
DVCPRO25), but the resulting picture-quality is reputed to rival Digital Betacam, a more
expensive studio format.

DVCPRO HD, also known as DVCPRO100, uses four parallel codecs and a coded video
bitrate of 100 Mbit/s. Despite HD in its name, DVCPROHD downsamples native
720p/1080i signals to a lower resolution. 720p is downsampled from 1280x720 to
960x720, and 1080i is downsampled from 1920x1080 to 1280x1080 for 59.94i and
1440x1080 for 50i. Compression ratio is approximately 7:1. To maintain compatibility
with HDSDI, DVCPRO100 equipment internally downsamples video during recording,
and subsequently upsamples video during playback. A camcorder using as special
variable-framerate (from 4 to 60 frame/s) variant of DVCPRO HD called VariCam is also
available. All these variants are backward compatible but not forward compatible.
Other variants

Sony's XDCAM format allows recording of MPEG IMX, DVCAM and low resolution
streams in an MXF wrapper on an optical medium similar to a Blu-Ray Disc, while
Panasonic's P2 system uses recording of DV/ DVCPRO/ DVCPRO50/ DVCPROHD
streams in an MXF wrapper on PCMCIA-compatible flash memory cards. Ikegami's
Editcam System can record in DVCPRO or DVCPRO50 format on a removable hard
disk. Note that most of these distinctions are for marketing purposes only - since
DVCPRO and DVCAM only differ in the method in which they write the DV stream to
tape, all these non-tape formats are virtually identical in regard to the video data.

JVC's D-9 format (also known as Digital-S) is very similar to DVCPRO50, but records on
videocassettes in the S-VHS form factor. (NOTE: D-9 is not to be confused with D-VHS,
which uses MPEG-2 compression at a significantly lower bitrate)

Digital8 standard uses the DV codec, but replaces the recording medium with the
venerable Hi8 videocassette. Digital8 offers DV's digital quality, without sacrificing
playback of existing analog Video8/Hi8 recordings.

H.261: Used primarily in older videoconferencing and videotelephony products. H.261,

developed by the ITU-T, was the first practical digital video compression standard.
Essentially all subsequent standard video codec designs are based on it. It included
such well-established concepts as YCbCr color representation, the 4:2:0 sampling
format, 8-bit sample precision, 16x16 macroblocks, block-wise motion compensation,
8x8 block-wise discrete cosine transformation, zig-zag coefficient scanning, scalar
quantization, run+value symbol mapping, and variable-length coding. H.261 supported
only progressive scan video.

H.263: Used primarily for videoconferencing, videotelephony, and internet video.

H.263 represented a significant step forward in standardized compression
capability for progressive scan video. Especially at low bit rates, it could provide
a substantial improvement in the bit rate needed to reach a given level of fidelity.

The Moving Picture Experts Group or MPEG is a working group of ISO/IEC charged
with the development of video and audio encoding standards. Its first meeting was in
1988 in Hanover. As of late 2005, MPEG has grown to include approximately 350
members from various industries and universities. MPEG's official designation is
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29 WG11.

MPEG (pronounced EM-peg) has standardized the following compression formats and
ancillary standards:

* MPEG-1: Initial video and audio compression standard. Later used as the standard
for Video CD, and includes the popular Layer 3 (MP3) audio compression format.
* MPEG-2: Transport, video and audio standards for broadcast-quality television.
Used for over-the-air digital television ATSC, DVB and ISDB, digital satellite TV services
like DirecTV, digital cable television signals, and (with slight modifications) for DVD video
discs.
 * MPEG-3: Originally designed for HDTV, but abandoned when it was discovered that
MPEG-2 was sufficient for HDTV.
* MPEG-4: Expands MPEG-1 to support video/audio "objects", 3D content, low bitrate
encoding and support for Digital Rights Management. Several new (newer than MPEG-2
Video) higher efficiency video standards are included (an alternative to MPEG-2 Video),
notably, Advanced Simple Profile and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC.
* MPEG-7: A formal system for describing multimedia content.
* MPEG-21: MPEG describes this future standard as a multimedia framework.

MPEG-1 Part 2: Used for Video CDs, and also sometimes for online video. The quality is
roughly comparable to that of VHS. If the source video quality is good and the bitrate is
high enough, VCD can look better than VHS, and all in all very good, but VCD requires
high bitrates for this. However, to get a fully compliant VCD file, bitrates higher than
1150 kbit/s and resolutions higher than 352 x 288 should not be used. Includes the
*.mp3 standard. When it comes to compatibility, VCD has the highest compatibility of
any digital video/audio system. Almost every computer in the world can play this codec,
and very few DVD players do not support it. In terms of technical design, the most
significant enhancements in MPEG-1 relative to H.261 were half-pel and bi-predictive
motion compensation support. MPEG-1 supported only progressive scan video.

MPEG-2 Part 2 (a common-text standard with H.262): Used on DVD and in another form
for SVCD and used in most digital video broadcasting and cable distribution systems.
When used on a standard DVD, it offers good picture quality and supports widescreen.
When used on SVCD, it is not as good but is certainly better than VCD. Unfortunately,
SVCD will only fit around 40 minutes of video on a CD, whereas VCD can fit an hour.
Will also be used on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. In terms of technical design, the most
significant enhancement in MPEG-2 relative to MPEG-1 was the addition of support for
interlaced video. MPEG-2 is now considered an aging codec, but has tremendous
market acceptance and a very large installed base.

MPEG-4 Part 2: An MPEG standard that can be used for internet, broadcast, and on
storage media. It offers improved quality relative to MPEG-2 and the first version of
H.263. Its major technical features beyond prior codec standards consisted of object-
oriented coding features and a variety of other such features not necessarily intended for
improvement of ordinary video coding compression capability. It also included some
enhancements of compression capability, both by embracing capabilities developed in
H.263 and by adding new ones such as quarter-pel motion compensation. Like MPEG-2,
it supports both progressive scan and interlaced video.

MPEG-4 Part 10 (a technically aligned standard with the ITU-T's H.264 and often also
referred to as AVC). This emerging new standard is the current state of the art of ITU-T
and MPEG standardized compression technology, and is rapidly gaining adoption into a
wide variety of applications. It contains a number of significant advances in compression
capability, and it has recently been adopted into a number of company products,
including for example the PlayStation Portable, the Nero Digital product suite, Mac OS X
v10.4, as well as HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

Theora: Developed by the Xiph.org Foundation as part of their Ogg project, based upon
On2 Technologies' VP3 codec, and christened by On2 as the successor in VP3's
lineage, Theora is targeted at competing with MPEG-4 video and similar lower-bitrate
video compression schemes.

WMV (Windows Media Video): Microsoft's family of video codec designs including
WMV 7, WMV 8, and WMV 9. It can do anything from low resolution video for dial up
internet users to HDTV. Files can be burnt to CD and DVD or output to any number of
devices. It is also useful for Media Centre PCs. WMV can be viewed as a version of the
MPEG-4 codec design. The latest generation of WMV is now in the process of being
standardized in SMPTE as the draft VC-1 standard.

QuickTime
QuickTime is a multimedia technology developed by Apple Computer, capable of
handling various formats of digital video, sound, text, animation, music, and immersive
panoramic (and sphere panoramic) images.

The most recent versions are available for the Macintosh and Windows platforms.

QuickTime file format

A QuickTime file (*.mov) functions as a multimedia container file that contains one or
more tracks, each of which store a particular type of data, such as audio, video, effects,
or text (for subtitles, for example). Each track in turn contains track media, either the
digitally encoded media stream (using a specific codec such as Cinepak, Sorenson
codec, MP3, JPEG, DivX, or PNG) or a data reference to the media stored in another file
or elsewhere on a network. It also has an "edit list" that indicates what parts of the media
to use.

Internally, QuickTime files maintain this format as a tree-structure of "atoms", each of

which uses a 4-byte OSType identifier to determine its structure. An atom can be a
parent to other atoms or it can contain data, but it cannot do both.

The ability to contain abstract data references for the media data, and the separation of
the media data from the media offsets and the track edit lists means that QuickTime is
particularly suited for editing, as it is capable of importing and editing in place (without
data copying) other formats such as AIFF DV, MP3, MPEG-1, and AVI. Other later-
developed media container formats such as Microsoft's Advanced Streaming Format or
the open source Ogg and Matroska containers lack this abstraction, and require all
media data to be rewritten after editing.

QuickTime and MPEG-4

On February 11, 1998 the ISO approved the QuickTime file format as the basis of the
MPEG-4 *.mp4 container standard. Supporters of the move noted that QuickTime
provided a good "life-cycle" format, well suited to capture, editing, archiving, distribution,
and playback (as opposed to the simple file-as-stream approach of MPEG-1 and MPEG-
2, which does not mesh well with editing). Developers added MPEG-4 compatibility to
QuickTime 6 in 2002. However, Apple delayed the release of this version for months in a
dispute with the MPEG-4 licensing body, claiming that proposed license fees would
constrain many users and content providers. Following a compromise, Apple released
QuickTime 6 on 15 July 2002.

Apple Pro Res Family

Pro Res 422

422 is a standard-definition and high-definition lossy video compression format
developed by Apple Inc. for use in post production. It was introduced in 2007 with Final
Cut Studio 2 [1] and is comparable to Avid's DNxHD codec which has the same purpose
and uses similar bit rates. Both are DCT based[2] intra-frame-only codecs, and are
therefore simpler to decode than distribution oriented formats like H.264.
Target data rate of approximately 145 Mbps (1920 x 1080 at 60i)
Higher quality than Apple ProRes 422 (LT)

Full-width 1920x1080 and 1280x720

4:2:2 chroma sampling
10-bit sample depth
I frame-only encoding
Variable bit-rate (VBR) encoding
Normal 147 Mbit/s and High-Quality 220 Mbit/s for HD resolution at 60i
Normal 42 Mbit/s and High-Quality 63 Mbit/s for SD resolution at 29.97
Fast encoding and decoding (both at full size and half size)

Pro Res 422 (HQ)

The Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) codec offers the utmost possible quality for 4:2:2 or 4:2:0
sources (without an alpha channel) and provides the following:
Target data rate of approximately 220 Mbps (1920 x 1080 at 60i)
Higher quality than Apple ProRes 422

ProRes 4444
4444 is a lossy video compression format developed by Apple Inc. for use in post
production that can handle standard definition, high definition, and 2K material. It was
introduced with Final Cut Studio Pro 7 [1] as another in their line of intermediate codecs
for editing material but not for final delivery. It shares many features with Apple's ProRes
family of codecs but provides better quality than its predecessors particularly in the area
of color.[2] ProRes 4444. For compositing and digital workflows that require the highest-
possible image fidelity.

Full-resolution, mastering-quality 4:4:4:4 RGBA color (an online-quality codec for editing
and finishing 4:4:4 material, such as that originating from Sony HDCAM SR or digital
cinema cameras such as RED ONE, Thomson Viper FilmStream, and Panavision
Genesis cameras). The R, G, and B channels are lightly compressed, with an emphasis
on being perceptually indistinguishable from the original material.
Lossless alpha channel with real-time playback
High-quality solution for storing and exchanging motion graphics and composites
For 4:4:4 sources, a data rate that is roughly 50 percent higher than the data rate of
Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)
Direct encoding of, and decoding to, RGB pixel formats
Support for any resolution, including SD, HD, 2K, 4K, and other resolutions
A Gamma Correction setting in the codec’s advanced compression settings pane, which
allows you to disable the 1.8 to 2.2 gamma adjustment that can occur if RGB material at
2.2 gamma is misinterpreted as 1.8. This setting is also available with the Apple ProRes
422 codec.

2K, HD (up to 1920x1080), & SD resoultions

4:4:4 chroma sampling
up to 12-bit pixel depth
Variable Bit Rate (VBR)
Alpha Channel Support

ProRes 422 (Proxy)

For craft editing or offline editing on a MacBook or MacBook Pro.
The Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy) codec is intended for use in offline workflows and
provides the following: Roughly 30 percent of the data rate of Apple ProRes 422
High-quality offline editing at the original frame size, frame rate, and aspect ratio
High-quality edit proxy for Final Cut Server

ProRes 422 (LT)

For projects such as news, sports, and multicam events that require reduced file sizes
at broadcast quality. Roughly 70 percent of the data rate of Apple ProRes 422 (thus,
smaller file sizes than Apple ProRes 422)
Higher quality than Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy)

DNxHD codec
Avid DNxHD, which stands for "Digital Nonlinear Extensible High Definition", is a lossy
high-definition video post-production codec engineered for multi-generation compositing
with reduced storage and bandwidth requirements. It is an implementation of SMPTE
VC-3 standard.[1] DNxHD codec was developed by Avid Technology, Inc. It is
comparable with Apple's ProRes 422 which uses similar bit rates and has the same
purpose.

Uncompressed high definition digital video has a substantially higher bitrate than
standard definition and can require powerful computers to process and edit. Other
codecs such as HDV, DVCPRO HD, AVC-Intra, AVCHD, and HDCAM use compression
techniques that limit the spatial and temporal resolution of the image. While suitable for
acquisition, these codecs will tend to degrade the image over the multiple encode-
decode cycles that are typically required during the post-production of complex layered
imagery. DNxHD offers a choice of three user-selectable bit rates: 220 Mbit/s with a bit
depth of 10 or 8 bits, and 145 or 36 Mbit/s with a bit depth of 8 bits.
DNxHD data is typically stored in an MXF container, although it can also be stored in a
Quicktime container. A standalone Quicktime codec for both Windows XP and Mac OS
X is available to create and play Quicktime files containing DNxHD material. There is
also an experimental support for DNxHD in open source FFMPEG project.
DNxHD is intended to be an open standard, but as of March 2008, has remained
effectively a proprietary Avid format. Ikegami's Editcam camera system is unique in its
support for DNxHD, and records directly to DNxHD encoded video. Such material is
immediately accessible by editing platforms that directly support the DNxHD codec. The
source code for the Avid DNxHD codec is freely available from Avid for internal
evaluation and review, although commercial use requires Avid licensing approval. It has
been commercially licensed to a number of companies including Ikegami, FilmLight,
Harris, JVC, Seachange and EVS[2].

DNxHD was first supported in Avid DS Nitris (Sept 2004), then Avid Media Composer
Adrenaline with the DNxcel option (Dec 2004) and finally by Avid Symphony Nitris (Dec
2005). Xpress Pro is limited to using DNxHD 8-bit compression, which is either imported
from file or captured using a Media Composer with Adrenaline hardware. Media
Composer 2.5 also allows editing of fully uncompressed HD material that was either
imported or captured on a Symphony Nitris or DS Nitris system. On February 13, 2008
Avid reported that DNxHD was approved as compliant with the SMPTE VC3 standard.[1]
In 2007, Apple unveiled ProRes 422, a codec matching many of the features of DNxHD.
ProRes lacked a low bandwidth offline resolution like DNxHD 36 until the 2009 release
of Final Cut Pro 7. With that release Apple added Pro Res 422 (Proxy) which runs
around 45 Mbps, among other additions to ProRes. ProRes is supported for playback on
Apple Macintosh and Windows computers, and is supplied and licensed for use when
purchased as part of Apple's professional video editing software package, Final Cut
Studio, (version 2 or later). DNxHD is available in 8 and 10 bit formats on any system
which supports Quicktime. Unlike DNxHD, ProRes 422 provides full functionality at
advanced resolutions (2K and 4K cinema) and SD.

Since September 2007 FFmpeg is providing 8-bit (but not 10-bit) VC-3/DNxHD encoding
and decoding features thanks to BBC Research who sponsored the project and Baptiste
Coudurier who implemented it. It is included in stable version 0.5 of FFmpeg, released
on March 10, 2009.[3][4] (ffmpeg -i <input_file> -vcodec dnxhd -b <bitrate> -an
output.mov). This allows Linux non-linear video editors Cinelerra and Kdenlive to use
DNxHD.

DNxHD is very similar to JPEG. Every frame is independent and consists of VLC-coded
DCT coefficients.

Header consists of many parts and may include quantization tables and 2048 bits of
user data. Also each frame has two GUIDs and timestamp. The frame header is packed
into big-endian dwords. Actual frame data consists of packed macroblocks using a
technique almost identical to JPEG: DC prediction and variable-length codes with run
length encoding for other 63 coefficients. DC coefficient is not quantized.
The codec supports alpha channel information.

RealVideo
is a proprietary video codec developed by RealNetworks. It was first released in 1997
and as of 2004 is at version 10. RealVideo is widely used by content owners because of
its reach to desktops (Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris) and mobile phones (Nokia Series
60, Motorola Linux, Samsung, Sony-Ericcson, and LG).
RealVideo has historically been used to deliver streaming video across IP networks at
low bit rates to desktop personal computers. Today's prevalence of broadband and use
of bigger pipes allow video to be encoded at higher bitrates resulting in increased quality
and clarity. With mobile carriers, such as Cingular Wireless, starting to offer data
services to customers with enabled handsets, video streaming enables consumers to
watch video on their mobile phones, be it today's news highlights or even live television.

RealVideo differs from standard video codecs in that it is a proprietory codec that is
optimized only for streaming via the proprietary PNA protocol or the Real Time
Streaming Protocol. It can be used for download and play (dubbed on-demand) or for
live streaming.

RealVideo is often paired with RealAudio and packaged in a RealMedia (.rm) container.
The only licensed desktop media player for RealMedia content is RealNetworks'
RealPlayer, currently at version 10.5. Unofficial players include MPlayer and Real
Alternative.

RealPlayer does not record RealVideo streams, and RealNetworks has

advertised this feature to content owners such as broadcasters, film studios, and
music labels, as a means of discouraging users from illegally copying content.
However, due to the open nature of the Real Time Streaming Protocol, other
software exists which can save the streams to files for later viewing.

Sorenson codec
The Sorenson codec (also known as Sorenson Video Codec, Sorenson Video Quantizer
or SVQ) is a digital video codec devised by the company Sorenson Media and used by
Apple's QuickTime and, in the newest version of Macromedia Flash, a special version
called Sorenson Spark.

The Sorenson codec first appeared in QuickTime 3. With QuickTime 4 it was widely
used for the first time at the release of the teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode I: The
Phantom Menace on March 11, 1999.

The specifications of the codec were not public, and for a long time the only way to play
back Sorenson video was to use Apple's QuickTime player, or the MPlayer for
Unix/Linux, which in turn piggy-backed Microsoft Windows DLL-files extracted from
Apple's player.

According to an anonymous developer1 of FFmpeg, reverse engineering of the SVQ3

codec revealed it as a tweaked version of H.264. The same developer also added
support for this codec to FFmpeg, making native playback on all platforms supported by
FFmpeg possible.

Sorenson 3: A codec that is popularly used by Apple's QuickTime, basically the

ancestor of H.264. Many of the Quicktime Movie trailers found on the web use this
codec.

Audio Codecs
AIFF
Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing
sound data on personal computers. The format was co-developed by Apple Computer
based on Electronic Arts Interchange File Format (IFF) and is most commonly used on
Apple Macintosh computer systems. AIFF is also used by Silicon Graphics Incorporated.

The audio data in an AIFF file is uncompressed big-endian pulse-code modulation

(PCM) so the files tend to be much larger than files that use lossless or lossy
compression formats such as Ogg and MP3. The AIFF-Compressed (AIFF-C or AIFC)
format supports compression ratios as high as 6:1.

WAV
WAV (or WAVE), short for WAVE form audio format, is a Microsoft and IBM audio file
format standard for storing audio on PCs. It is a variant of the RIFF bitstream format
method for storing data in "chunks", and thus also close to the IFF and the AIFF format
used on Macintosh computers. It takes into account some differences of the Intel CPU
such as little-endian byte order. The RIFF format acts as a "wrapper" for various audio
compression codecs. It is the main format used on Windows systems for raw audio.

Though a WAV file can hold audio compressed with any codec, by far the most common
format is pulse-code modulation (PCM) audio data. Since PCM uses an uncompressed,
lossless storage method, which keeps all the samples of an audio track, professional
users or audio experts may use the WAV format for maximum audio quality. WAV audio
can also be edited and manipulated with relative ease using software.

Popularity

As file sharing over the Internet has become popular, the WAV format has declined in
popularity, primarily because uncompressed WAV files are quite large in size. More
frequently, compressed but lossy formats such as MP3, Ogg Vorbis and AAC are used
to store and transfer audio, since their smaller file sizes allow for faster transfers over the
Internet, and large collections of files consume only a conservative amount of disk
space. There are also more efficient, lossless codecs available, such as Monkey's
Audio, TTA, WavPack, FLAC, Shorten, Apple Lossless and WMA Lossless.

Limitations

The WAV format is limited to files that are less than 2 gigabytes in size, due to the way
its 32-bit file size header is read by most programs. Although this is equivalent to more
than 3 hours of CD-quality audio (44.1 kHz, 16-bit stereo), it is sometimes necessary to
go over this limit. The W64 format was created for use in Sound Forge. Its 64-bit header
allows for much longer recording times. This format can be converted using the libsndfile
library.
[edit]

Audio CDs

Audio CDs do not use WAV as their storage format. The commonality is that both audio
CDs and WAV files have the audio data encoded in PCM. WAV is a data file format for
computer use. If one were to transfer an audio CD bit stream to WAV files and record
them onto a CD-R as a data disc (in ISO format), the CD could not be played in a player
that was only designed to play audio CDs.

Μ-law algorithm

In telecommunication, a mu-law algorithm (µ-law) is a standard analog signal

compression or companding algorithm, used in digital communications systems of the
North American and Japanese digital hierarchies, to optimize (in other words, modify)
the dynamic range of an audio analog signal prior to digitizing. It is similar to the A-law
algorithm used in Europe.

For a given input x, the equation for µ-law encoding is as follows,

where µ = 255 (8 bits) in the North American and Japanese standards.

µ-law expansion is then given by the inverse equation:

This encoding is used because speech has a wide dynamic range that does not lend
itself well to efficient linear digital encoding. Moreover, perceived intensity (loudness) is
logarithmic. Mu-law encoding effectively reduces the dynamic range of the signal,
thereby increasing the coding efficiency and resulting in a signal-to-distortion ratio that is
greater than that obtained by linear encoding for a given number of bits.

The mu-law algorithm is also used in some rather standard programming language
approaches for storing and creating sound (such as the classes in the sun.audio
package in Java 1.1, in the .au format, and in some C# methods).

Pulse-code modulation (Encoding)

Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a digital representation of an analog signal where the

magnitude of the signal is sampled regularly at uniform intervals, then quantized to a
series of symbols in a digital (usually binary) code. PCM is used in digital telephone
systems and is also the standard form for digital audio in computers and various
compact disc formats. It is also standard in digital video.

Several Pulse Code Modulation streams may be multiplexed into a larger aggregate
data stream. This technique is called time-division multiplexing, or TDM.

Digitization as part of the PCM process

In conventional PCM, the analog signal may be processed (e.g. by amplitude
compression) before being digitized. Once the signal is digitized, the PCM signal is not
subjected to further processing (e.g. digital data compression).

Some forms of PCM combine signal processing with coding. Older versions of these
systems applied the processing in the analog domain as part of the A/D process, newer
implementations do so in the digital domain. These simple techniques have been largely
rendered obsolete by modern transform-based signal compression techniques.

• Differential (or Delta) pulse-code modulation (DPCM) encodes the PCM

values as differences between the current and the previous value. For audio this
type of encoding reduces the number of bits required per sample by about 25%
compared to PCM.
• Adaptive DPCM (ADPCM) is a variant of DPCM that varies the size of the
quantization step, to allow further reduction of the required bandwidth for a given
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR or S/N).

In telephony, a standard audio signal for a single phone call is encoded as 8000 analog
samples per second, of 8 bits each, giving a 64 kbit/s digital signal known as DS0. The
default encoding on a DS0 is either µ-law (mu-law) PCM (North America) or a-law PCM
(Europe and most of the rest of the world). These are logarithmic compression systems
where a 12 or 13 bit linear PCM sample number is mapped into an 8 bit value. This
system is described by international standard G.711.

Where circuit costs are high and loss of voice quality is acceptable, it sometimes makes
sense to compress the voice signal even further. An ADPCM algorithm is used to map a
series of 8 bit PCM samples into a series of 4 bit ADPCM samples. In this way, the
capacity of the line is doubled. The technique is detailed in the G.726 standard.

Later it was found that even further compression was possible and additional standards
were published. Some of these international standards describe systems and ideas
which are covered by privately owned patents and thus use of these standards requires
payments to the patent holders.

Some ADPCM techniques are used in Voice over IP communications.

Encoding the bitstream as a signal

Pulse-code modulation can be either return-to-zero (RZ) or non-return-to-zero (NRZ).

For a NRZ system to be synchronized using in-band information, there must not be long
sequences of identical symbols, such as ones or zeroes. For binary PCM systems, the
density of 1-symbols is called 'ones-density'.

Ones-density is often controlled using precoding techniques such as Run Length Limited
encoding, where the PCM code is expanded into a slightly longer code with a
guaranteed bound on ones-density before modulation into the channel. In other cases,
extra 'framing' bits are added into the stream which guarantee at least occasional
symbol transitions.
Another technique used to control ones-density is the use of a 'scrambler' polynomial on
the raw data which will tend to turn the raw data stream into a stream that looks pseudo-
random, but where the raw stream can be recovered exactly by reversing the effect of
the polynomial. In this case, long runs of zeroes or ones are still possible on the output,
but are considered unlikely enough to be within normal engineering tolerance.

In other cases, the long term DC value of the modulated signal is important, as building
up a DC offset will tend to bias detector circuits out of their operating range. In this case
special measures are taken to keep a count of the cumulative DC offset, and to modify
the codes if necessary to make the DC offset always tend back to zero.

Many of these codes are bipolar codes, where the pulses can be positive, negative or
absent. Typically, non-zero pulses alternate between being positive and negative. These
rules may be violated to generate special symbols used for framing or other special
purposes.

History of PCM

PCM was invented by the British engineer Alec Reeves in 1937 while working for the
International Telephone and Telegraph in France.

The first transmission of speech by pulse code modulation was the SIGSALY voice
encryption equipment used for high-level Allied communications during World War II
from 1943.