What’s The Deal With Video Compression?

Q: What’s the deal with video compression? I have multitudes of video files on my computer, and I don’t have any idea about the compression formats that are available to me. How does it all work?

A: Without compression, your video files would be in dire need of the Atkins program. Video frames are made up of a bunch of data, which in turn makes the file sizes tremendous. Whether you are keeping videos on your computer or on the Internet, you’re going to need to be thrifty with your file sizes. This is where compression comes in. Compression methods attempt to rid the file of excess information, without messing up the overall quality of the picture. Sure, you could just drastically reduce the resolution of the file, but this would result in a rough looking video, to say the least. We want to keep our files looking good, and to do that, different compression methods have to be evaluated.

For more information on the basic idea of compression, go ahead and turn to this article from Kim Komando. She’ll instruct you on the basics of compression, and briefly discuss the compression formats that are out there. We all have to start somewhere, and that article should get you well on your way to figuring out what you need to do next.

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