Distribution: Compressing the Goods

Andrew Burke
January 2008

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You have that great video finished, the one with your finest camerawork and editing, and you want to share it. Now what? Sure, you can make a few DVDs and hand them out. There's certainly nothing wrong with giving the gift of a shiny spinning disc! But distributing and sharing video over the Web is no doubt creating excitement for a reason: it's easy, it's effective and it's fun. Getting marginal results is the norm, but you, the Videomaker reader, want to do it better. You want your picture sharper and your sound clearer. Whether you simply want to share short videos with family, or you'd like to showcase HD video for your paying client, knowledge of video compression is important. So, if you're not into video compression, you're missing out!

When we talk about compression, we typically mean reducing the file size of a piece of video. Compressing video means more than squishing a big picture into looking like a little one. And it's more than taking that 5-gigabyte behemoth and turning it into a mere 50-megabyte video file. Compressing video also allows us to change the format of our video, from one that only we can watch into one that a wide audience can view. Consider trying to send an original HDV (or other high definition video) clip from your computer to a friend, over e-mail. Even if the video file is small enough to fit within your e-mail file size limitations, you may be putting your friend in a pickle. Not everyone has the ability to play back the HDV format video you've sent. Compress the same video into a more widely-used Windows Media or QuickTime format, and the odds are in favor of your friend. So let's get started, shall we?

Recent advances in video compression have redefined what "Web video" means. It used to mean squinting at a small, blocky window that barely played moving images. But viewers' expectation of Web video has undergone radical changes lately. Most of this is due to better video compression technologies that supply viewers with higher-quality video. A recent advancement includes video compression using H.264, which dramatically changes the landscape of Web video, by allowing video to be compressed into ever-smaller files while maintaining higher resolution. Additionally, the H.264 codec has found its way into Adobe's prolific Flash Video Player, making it a much more usable codec. As Internet connection speeds continue to increase all over the world, eventually the floodgates will be wide open for delivering high-quality video across the Internet.

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