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8:00AM

Stuff To Know About Codecs

(article source)
David Kong
here with another video tutorial for you, this time on codecs. I’ve found a lot of confusion and mis-information around the internet about how codecs work, how the differ, and why those differences matter.

Hopefully, this video/post will clear those up. I know it’s long, but I really wanted to break it down and explain things thoroughly, rather than just skimming the surface like a lot of tutorials do. Codecs can sound impossibly complex when all you get is a bunch of numbers and acronyms, but the main concepts at work really aren’t that complicated.

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I explain the concepts behind different types of codecs, but I also give some real-world examples which should help you understand how these algorithms work on a practical level, pulling frames into Photoshop to break them down and examine how our codecs have changed the image.

  • 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!)

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