Overview of the Various Audio and Video Standards
Without a doubt, there are many and various different audio and video standards out there. Some are for computers and some are for consumer electronics. This blog entry is a brief and simple overview of some standards currently used or recently used. It will not provide an in-depth and technical explination. The purpose is to inform you of the various standards. A future blog post will explain how to put your video files, even HD video files, onto your iPad and this blog entry will be required if you do not know about the various standard. (Expect this blog post to posted mid September.)
First, there is one definition you should know. It will be used quite often in this blog entry. A codec, which is short for coder/decoder, is a way of audio or video so that it can be easily shared. They can be divided into two groups: lossless and lossy. A lossless codec is one that does not discard any of the source material when capturing the original source. A lossy codec does discard some of the source material. Lossless codecs cannot compress the source material well, which makes it harder to use. Lossy codecs do compress better, so the key is to compress just enough so that the output is close to the original. As time goes on, lossy codecs have become more efficient, meaning they can compress the source much more and achieve the same level of quality. Because the destination is much smaller, lossy codecs are usually used.
To limit file sharing, some formats support Digital Rights Management, or DRM for short. This is just a controversial system that monitors and tracks how many devices a particular file is being used on. When a file has DRM, it is only activated when the file is used.
Posted by Wade Burchette at 5:00 PM - Categories: Audio/Video