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"Internet Video Looks Bad"
Poor quality Internet video of the past was attributable to the small file sizes needed to allow users to download quickly and reduce jerky movement casued by slow network speeds.. The explosion of home broadband subscribers* changed the paradigm, greatly reducing connection-speed bottlenecks. In this new environment, video quality can be significantly improved without compromising its smooth and reliable delivery.
Components of Video Quality
Because raw video files are so enormous, all Internet video requires a high level of compression. The compression process is key to acheiving quality internet video. Basically, compression is achieved by removing parts (pixels) of the video that are redundant and combining them into a single block of digital information, often called spacial compression. Temporal compression, reduces the frame rate to augment the amount of pixels per frame. These two types of compression have the greatest effect on how a video looks and behaves via the Internet. This is why a video of a newscaster speaking to the camera usually looks better than a music video, which tends to have a lot of movement, rapid editing and lots of spacial and chromatic shifts. And this is why no two videos can be processed the same way and why batch encoding often yields mixed results.
In order to acheive the best possible Web video while maintaining manageable file size and bit rates, the spacial and temporal compression along with sound quality all need to be optimized collectively.
The Digital Master File
Video is captured from its source (e.g. Digibeta, VHS, Beta, DV) to create a master file.. This is one of the more crucial stages in the process. and obtaining the purest version of the source is key. The Video Design Studio (TVDS) can capture most source tapes via SDI and reach data rates upwards of 350 Mbps.
The Art of Preprocessing
The next step is to prep the video before its final format and codec transformation. This includes applying filters and algorithms that encoders often call "preprocessing." This can involve a myriad of adjustments, the most common of which are resizing, de-interlacing, chrominance and luminance manipulation, and noise reduction. Apart from the codec settings chosen for the final output, this is perhaps the most important step in the encoding process.
Multiple Formats and Transfer Rates
Once the videos are digitized and optimized from the source, they need to be formatted and configured for the specific delivery channel. Despite what the makers of Flash Video would like you to believe, there really is no standard format or multimedia container for displaying video over the Internet. Videos displayed on a Web page have very different requirements than the same video displayed on an iPod or mobile phone. Similarly, a video that is meant to be streamed over a company’s intranet is encoded differently than one that's meant to be downloaded from Amazon.
The Video Design Studio (TVDS) knows which is which and can create the best possible video file for each distribution channel. And when these requirements change,The Video Design Studio adapts..
