A Practical Guide to Video and Audio Compression

31

Preparing to Encode Your Video

31.1 Introduction

This chapter (as do the ones that follow) covers the practicalities of encoding good-looking video. The consensus among compressionists (experienced practitioners in video compression) is that this is a mixture of art, craft, and science. The bulk of the work involves preprocessing the video before the compression begins.

31.2 The Workflow

The process follows an ordered sequence that is broken into several major sections:

•  Bringing the video into the system—ingesting

•  Temporal preprocessing—dealing with timing

•  Spatial preprocessing—dealing with sizing

•  Color correction—grading and picture quality

•  Noise removal—cleaning it up

•  Audio preparation

•  Encoding the content

•  Postprocessing ...