Video: Chapter 7 Video


What is Video?: What is Video? Video is when you take many pictures per second, sequence the pictures in order, and play them back at about the same rate as they were taken. Animation is different. Typically, you take or make the pictures at a much slower rate but then play them back at a faster rate. Not live, not real-time.


Video Recording: Video Recording The technology for recording video is pretty much the same as the technology for taking pictures Optical device that can capture a scene (the actual light) and store it. How to store it Negative film (analog) Digital encoding (requires codec) The challenge is that video requires taking and storing many picture per second.


Movie Cameras vs. Camcorder: Movie Cameras vs. Camcorder Movie Cameras stores images on negative film. Mechanical – moving parts Optical – glass lenses Analog – no bits needed Camcorder stores images on magnetic tape. Still mechanical – to move tape Same optical technology as any camera Analog capture but images stored digitally (requires a codec).


Analog vs. Digital: Analog vs. Digital Q: Are camcorders analog or digital? A: They are both They process analog signals (light and sound waves) At some point the signals are digitally encoded. Magnetic Tapes  Bit encoding Negative Film  No bits, real image


Alternative to Magnetic Tapes: Alternative to Magnetic Tapes As Flash memory chips get bigger, they will likely replace tapes. Also, camcorders may eventually have Hard Disks similar to the 20GB+ iPods. Tapes are still more cost effective for recording/archiving. Tapes are sequential, no random access.


Recording is driven by Broadcast: Recording is driven by Broadcast The way video is recorded/stored is dictated by how it is Broadcast. Specifically, TV Broadcast Broadcast refers to how the signal is transmitted to the masses. Ultimately, dictated by What kind of TV’s people have Cable TV systems


PAL: PAL Is an Analog Video Standard for Broadcast TV Phase Alternating Line is a color encoding system used in broadcast television in large parts of the world (Most of Europe) Other common television systems are SECAM and NTSC.


NTSC: NTSC National Television System Committee Analog television system used in USA, Canada, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan.


PAL (Digital Specifications): Minimal Resolution 768x576 pixels per frame x 3 bytes per pixel (24 bit colour) Minimal Sampling x 25 frames per second Uncompressed Size ≈ 31 MB per second ≈ 1.85 GB per minute Compressed Size PAL (Digital Specifications) 191–192


NTSC (Digital Specifications): Minimal Resolution 640x480 pixels per frame x 3 bytes per pixel (24 bit colour) Minimal Sampling x 30 frames per second (approx) Uncompressed Size ≈ 26 MB per second ≈ 1.6 GB per minute Compressed Size ≈ 4 MB per minute ≈ 240 MB per minute NTSC (Digital Specifications) 191–192


Camcorders revised…: Camcorders revised… The term camcorder is combination of Camera + Tape Recorder VHS and Beta were the initial standard VHS won. Similar to Blu-ray vs. HD DVD Long before VHS recorders were marketed to the end consumer VHS camcorders and devices were pioneered by the TV news market.


The New Camcorders: The New Camcorders DV and MiniDV - Same thing as VHS but Physically smaller tape Recorders are smaller More storage capacity Higher resolution video Faster encoding More frames per second Less noise


DV and MiniDV: DV and MiniDV Intended for consumer market as a high-quality replacement for VHS Camcorders But, L-size DV cassettes are primarily used in professional settings Standard for TV News Mini DV Camcorders are becoming consumer standard. I requested a MiniDV for this course but was denied.


DV and MiniDV: DV and MiniDV The "L" cassette 4.6 hours of video The better known MiniDV "S" cassettes 60 or 90 minutes of video (11 GB) Terminology Standard Play (SP) Extended Play (sometimes called Long Play) (EP/LP). Mini-DV Tapes are about $3.00 each


DVCPRO: DVCPRO Panasonic created DVCPRO for electronic news gathering. Higher resolution and more frames per second compared to DV standard Better linear editing capabilities and robustness. DVCPRO HD, also known as DVCPRO100 can capture video at 1440x1080 up to 60 frame per second. "M" tape can only hold up to 66 minutes of video.


HD Digital Movies: HD Digital Movies Most major motion pictures are shot in negative film (analog technology) Film negative is high resolving medium (as good as the best digital capturing technology) Academy camera US Widescreen: 21 × 11 mm  2970 × 1605 Current Anamorphic Panavision ("Scope"): 21 × 17.5 mm  2970 × 2485 Super-35 for Anamorphic prints: 24 x 10 mm  3390 × 1420


How Film Works: How Film Works Film has millions of light-sensitive silver halide crystals (silver + halogen) held together in a cubical arrangement by electrical attraction. When crystals are struck by light, silver ions build up a collection of uncharged atoms. These ions, too small to even be visible under a microscope, are the beginning of a latent image. Developing chemicals use the latent image specs to build up density, an accumulation of enough metallic silver to create a visible image


Film Width: Film Width Each image stored sequentially on film role. To achieve higher resolution, you can increase the width of the film Only part of the width can be used to capture images 35mm 21mm


Film Width & Orientation: Film Width & Orientation 35mm Film can achieve High Definite (HD) resolutions HD Wide Screen 1920+ × 1080+ 70mm can go way beyond the HD seen on BluRay and HD DVD. IMAX used 70mm film and changes the orientation. 10000 X 7000 is possible.


Digitizing Film: Digitizing Film Converting the Film (analog) to digital form. Negative Film Scanners are used… Prices range from $100 to $20,000 http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Plustek-OpticFilm-7200i


Recap: Recap Video standards are driven by what can be viewed or Broadcast. Broadcast standard in US is NTSC 640 X 480. Magnet Tape is still the most cost-effective technology for storing digital video. Improvements in viewing Technology: Affordable HD TV’s, DVD’s, Bluray, etc. have lead to… DV, MiniDV, and DVCPro recorders and tapes DVCPro HD  1440x1080


Recap: Recap Negative Film (analog) is still superior to digital alternatives in terms of Maximum Resolution Frame rate However, for production, negative film is often digitized using film scanners. Digital video is easier to edit. Digital signals have no noise. Analog signals can be corrupted when transmitted over distances. Negative film can also be easily damaged.


Another example of Multimedia: Another example of Multimedia http://www.cia.edu/dreams/surreal/index1.html


Streamed Video: Play back a video stream as it arrives over a network (like broadcast TV), instead of downloading an entire video clip and playing it from disk (like renting a DVD) Example: youTube Streamed Video 197


HTTP Streaming: Start playing a downloaded clip as soon as enough of it has arrived Starts when the (estimated) time to download the rest is equal to the duration of the clip HTTP Streaming 198


Ideal Streaming Systems: Ideal Streaming Systems Ideally, several different versions could be available Your system (web browser, etc.) download that largest version that it can play in real-time. Starts immediately Downloads entirely before its over Requires knowledge of you network performance, which could change Pipe Dream of sorts.


Interlacing: Required for TV signal; Capitalizes on features of CRT technology. Each frame is divided into two fields Field 1: odd lines; Field 2: even lines Fields are transmitted one after the other Frame is built out of the interlaced fields http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlace Interlacing 200


Chrominance: Chrominance Chrominance (chroma for short), is the signal used to carry the color information separately from the accompanying luma signal. Chroma is color Luma is brightness Chrominance has two color difference components: B'–Y' (blue – luma) R'–Y' (red – luma)


Chrominance: Chrominance Separating RGB color signals into luma and chroma values has many advantages First, in B&W CRT’s can display only the luma values, which gives you the gray-scale component. Second, the human eye is more sensitive to luma then chroma, so you don’t have to transmit the chroma signal for all pixels.


4:2:2 sub-sampling: Twice as many luma samples as each of chroma samples Normally, there would be three signals (dots) for every pixel. How, many dots per pixel are here? (on averge). 4:2:2 sub-sampling 203


DV sub-sampling: PAL DV 4:2:0 chrominance sub-sampling DV sub-sampling 210


DV sub-sampling: NTSC DV 4:1:1 chrominance sub-sampling DV sub-sampling 210


MPEG: ISO/IEC Motion Picture Experts Group Series of standards including MPEG-1 intended for video CD MPEG-2 used in DVD and broadcast MPEG-4 for low bitrate multimedia MPEG 204–206


MPEG Profiles & Levels: Profiles define subsets of the features of the data stream Levels define parameters such as frame size and data rate Each profile may be implemented at one or more levels Notation: profile@level, e.g. MP@ML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_Part_2#Profiles MPEG Profiles & Levels 204–205


MPEG-2 Profiles & Levels: MPEG-2 Main Profile at Main Level (MP@ML) used for DVD video CCIR 601 scanning  Interlaced 4:2:0 chrominance sub-sampling 15 Mbits per second MPEG-2 Profiles & Levels 205


MPEG-4: Designed to support a range of multimedia data at bit rates from 10kbps to >1.8Mbps Applications from mobile phones to HDTV Video codec becoming popular for Internet use, is incorporated in QuickTime, RealMedia and DivX MPEG-4 205–206


MPEG-4 Profiles & Levels: Visual Simple Profile (SP), suitable for low bandwidth streaming over Internet Visual Advanced Simple Profile (ASP) suitable for broadband streaming SP@L1 (Level 1 of Simple Profile), 64 kbps, 176x144 pixel frame ASP@L5, 8000 kbps, full CCIR 601 frame MPEG-4 Profiles & Levels 205


Video Compression: Spatial (intra-frame) compression Compress each frame in isolation, treating it as a bitmapped image Temporal (inter-frame) compression Compress sequences of frames by only storing differences between them Always some compression because of sub-sampling Video Compression 206–208


Spatial Compression: Image compression applied to each frame Can therefore be lossless or lossy, but lossless rarely produces sufficiently high compression ratios for volume of data Lossless compression implies a loss of quality if decompressed then recompressed Ideally, work with uncompressed video during post-production Spatial Compression 207


Temporal Compression: Key frames are spatially compressed only Key frames often regularly spaced (e.g. every 12 frames) Difference frames only store the differences between the frame and the preceding frame or most recent key frame Difference frames can be efficiently spatially compressed Temporal Compression 207–208


Motion JPEG: Purely spatial compression Apply JPEG to each frame Used by most analogue capture cards No standard, but MJPEG-A format widely supported Motion JPEG 209–210


DV Compression: Starts with chrominance sub-sampling of CCIR 601 frame Constant data rate 25Mbits per second Higher quality than MJPEG at same rate Apply DCT, quantization, run-length and Huffman coding on zig-zag sequence – like JPEG – to 8x8 blocks of pixels DV Compression 210–211


DV Compression: If little or no difference between fields (almost static frame), apply DCT to block containing alternate lines from odd and even fields If motion between fields, apply DCT to two 8x4 blocks (one from each field) separately, leading to more efficient compression of frames with motion DV Compression 210–211


DV Compression: Shuffling Construct video segments by taking 8x8 blocks from five different areas of the frame, to ‘average’ amount of detail Calculate coefficients for whole video segment, making more efficient use of available bytes DV Compression 210–211


Older Codecs: Cinepak – Longest established, high compression ratio, takes much longer to compress than to decompress Intel Indeo – Similar to Cinepak, but roughly 30% faster compression Sorenson – More recent, higher quality and better compression ratios than other two All three based on vector quantization Quality of all three inferior to MPEG-4 Older Codecs 216–219


Vector Quantization: Divide each frame into small rectangular blocks (’vectors’) Code Book – collection of constant vectors representing typical patterns (edges, textures, flat colour,…) Compress by replacing each vector in image by index of vector from code book that most closely resembles it Vector Quantization 216


Post-Production: Changing or adding to the material Most changes are generalizations of image manipulation operations (e.g. colour correction, blurring and sharpening,…) Compositing – combining elements from different shots into a composite sequence Animating elements and combining animation with live action Post-Production 230–236


Preparing for Delivery: Compromises required to bring resource requirements of video within capabilities of delivery media (e.g. networks) and low-end machines Reduce frame size (e.g. downsample to quarter frame) Reduce frame rate (12fps is OK for smooth motion, flicker not a problem on computer) Reduce colour depth Preparing for Delivery 236–237