The Technology of Video and Audio Streaming, 2nd Edition

4Video formats

Introduction

Before video can be streamed it must go through several processing stages. Streaming video starts with a television camera, which may be combined with other cameras in a switcher. Alternatively, the signal is recorded for later editing. The second stage is to convert the video to a computer file format, an operation called capture or ingest. Finally, it can be processed by the streaming encoder.

There are many similarities between television and computer video, but there are minor differences in the standards and formats that are relevant to capture. This chapter gives an overview of the broadcast television standards for the reader who may be more familiar with computer formats like AVI and QuickTime. This chapter ...