All About Video Codecs & Making Digital Media

Video Transcript

"Hey, welcome back. This is Glenn with Expert Village on how to make a professional looking video. You are really sticking this out and I really appreciate it. Make sure you check out my website -- pllightstudios.com and it will give you more information and show you some things we are working on to help you make professional looking videos. There is one thing I want to share with you and it goes back to the science of this. It's what we call 'codecs'. Codecs is short for compression-decompression. You have to remember this is digital video and your video is being compressed. Once you bring that video into your computer. In your computer, you have the option to set up other codecs. For example, let's say you want to go to an .avi format. That is a codec. It's just another way it is compressed. You physically have to tell the computer "I'm going to this format to this format." That also couples it with rendering, because as soon as you change formats, guess what? Your rendering time goes up. Say for example this video I'm working on here, I want to send to a DVD. Simply in this program, I tell it to export to DVD. Remember, it is changing it's codec. It's changing the way it is compressed. Digital video to DVD, which is mpeg2. There are literally hundreds of compression techniques out there. There's mpeg2, mpeg4, flash video is a form of compression. The things you need to know to keep your videos professional is the way you can give it to other people. Say, for example, once again I need this video to be put on the web. You bring it in exactly like we show you, do it exactly like we saw here. The main thing is that when you actually export o render it, you are actually going to choose the codec that represents your medium. I can't go into a lot of detail here, but there is enough information on the web and books out there that will help you very very clearly distinguish the format you need that will be for DVD, HD, the web, iPods, you name it. When we come back, we are going to wrap this up, go with a few summaries, in ways and tips you can get a hold of me to make your life a lot easier."