Editing digital video involves storing, moving, and calculating extremely large volumes of data compared to other kinds of computer files. Many PC’s, particularly older models, are not equipped to handle the high data rates (amount of video information processed each second) and large file sizes of uncompressed digital video. Use compression to lower the data rate of digital video to a range that your computer system can handle.

Applying the best compression settings can be tricky, and the best settings can vary with each project. If you apply too little compression, the data rate will be too high for the system, causing errors such as dropped frames. If you apply too much compression, lowering the data rate too far, you won’t be taking advantage of the full capacity of the system and the picture quality may suffer unnecessarily.

Choosing a Video Compression Method

The goal of data compression is to represent the same content using less data. You can specify a compressor/decompressor, or codec, that manages compression. A codec may use one or more strategies for compression because no single method is best for all situations. The most common compression strategies used by codecs and the kinds of video they are intended to compress are described below.

Types of Compression

1. Spatial compression

2. Temporal compression

3. Lossless and lossy compression

4. Asymmetrical and symmetrical compression