Knowing Your Digital Video Formats

Digital video files come in many different shapes, sizes and formats. Whether it's for web delivery, video editing, archiving, DTV or IPTV playout, DVD or Blu-Ray disc or even simply a video clip inserted into a Powerpoint presentation, we are constrained to a specific file format and compression setting depending upon its intended use.

Although H.264 holds the promise of a single standard video format that would be scalable for all uses, we still don't have a standard file format and at times it can get confusing. I found a few helpful articles on knowing your digital video file formats:


This one is courtesy of Reel SEO and was written by guest author and long-time video professional Lorraine Grula.

• Overview of Digital Video File Formats (with accompanied video tutorial)
  
  The video is courtesy of VideoProductionTips.com and produced also by Lorraine Grula. It's covers a lot of basic information about compression formats and is more of a beginners' video but very useful nonetheless. The formats explained include: AVCHD, AVI, DivX, FLV, GVI, H26L
  
  Here's another related article from Reel SEO by software developer Aritrim Basu:
  • Beginner Tips - Streaming Video Formats
  
  
  The following is a two part article focusing on video recording formats from Digital Content Producer by streaming media expert author Jan Ozer.
  
  
  
  • Know Your Formats | A look at DV, HDV, AVCHD, XDCAM HD, DVCPRO HD, and AVC-Intra
  • Know Your Formats, Part 2
    

UPDATE:

• Replaced video due to errors.
• Here's an additional resource courtesy of Cyberlink:
• Understanding Video Output Formats - Digital Video Education by CyberLink