Video codec

• A video codec is an electronic circuit or software that compresses or decompresses digital video.
• "codec" is a concatenation of "encoder" and "decoder".
• A device that only compresses data is called an encoder, and one that only decompresses is a decoder.

• They are widely used in applications that record or transmit video.
• Video codecs are used in DVD and video CD players and recorders, video broadcast systems, personal computers, and a variety of other applications.

Video compression

• Video compression is typically lossy, meaning that the compressed video lacks some information present in the original video.
• The compressed data format usually store in a standard video compression specification.
• Video compression uses modern coding techniques to reduce redundancy in video data.

List of video codec

H.262 or MPEG-2

• MPEG-2 video is not optimized for low bit-rates (less than 1 bit/s), but out performs MPEG-1 at 3 bit/s and above.
• All standards-conforming MPEG-2 Video decoders are fully capable of playing back MPEG-1 Video streams.

H.263 or MPEG-4 Part2

• It is originally designed as a low-bit-rate compressed format for video conferencing.
• The H.263 standard was first designed to be utilized in H.324 based systems.

H.264 or MPEG-4 AVC

• Stands for Advanced Video Coding.
• It is a block-oriented motion-compensation-based video compression standard.
• It providing good video quality at substantially lower bit rates than previous standards.
• It provides enough flexibility to allow the standard to be applied to a wide variety of applications on a wide variety of networks and systems.

H.265 or MPEG-H HEVC

• Stands for High Efficiency Video Coding.
• In comparison to AVC, HEVC offers about double the data compression ratio at the same level of video quality, or substantially improved video quality at the same bit rate.
• It supports resolutions up to 8192×4320, including 8K UHD.

Microsoft codec

• Microsoft's family of proprietary video codec designs including WMV 7, WMV 8, and WMV 9.
• The latest generation of WMV is standardized by SMPTE as the VC-1 standard.

Google(On2) codec

• VP6, VP6-E, VP6-S, VP7, VP8, VP9 proprietary high definition video compression formats and codecs developed by On2 Technologies.
• These are used in platforms such as Adobe Flash Player 8 and above, Adobe Flash Lite, Java FX and other mobile and desktop video platforms.
• Supports resolution up to 720p and 1080p, VP9 supports resolutions up to 2160p, VP8 and VP9 have been available under the New BSD License by Google with source code available as the libvpx VP8/VP9 codec SDK.

My notes