Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data. This is in contrast to analog video, which represents moving visual images with analog signals. Digital video comprises a series of digital images displayed in rapid succession.
QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. First made in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is currently available on Mac OS X Snow Leopard and newer. Apple ceased support for the Windows version of QuickTime in 2016, and ceased support for QuickTime 7 on macOS in 2018.
DV is a format for storing digital videos. It was launched in 1995 with joint efforts of leading producers of video camera recorders. It is the foundation of the MiniDV format.
Non-linear editing is a form of offline editing for audio, video, and image editing. In offline editing, the original content is not modified in the course of editing. In non-linear editing, edits are specified and modified by specialized software. A pointer-based playlist, effectively an edit decision list (EDL), for video and audio, or a directed acyclic graph for still images, is used to keep track of edits. Each time the edited audio, video, or image is rendered, played back, or accessed, it is reconstructed from the original source and the specified editing steps. Although this process is more computationally intensive than directly modifying the original content, changing the edits themselves can be almost instantaneous, and it prevents further generation loss as the audio, video, or image is edited.
Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: The original video compression technology known as WMV, was originally designed for Internet streaming applications, as a competitor to RealVideo. The other compression technologies, WMV Screen and WMV Image, cater for specialized content. After standardization by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), WMV version 9 was adapted for physical-delivery formats such as HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc and became known as VC-1. Microsoft also developed a digital container format called Advanced Systems Format to store video encoded by Windows Media Video.
iMovie is a video editing software application developed by Apple Inc. for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS devices. It was originally released in 1999 as a Mac OS 8 application bundled with the first FireWire-enabled consumer Mac model – the iMac DV. Since version 3, iMovie has been a macOS-only application included with the iLife suite of Mac applications. iMovie was included for free with the purchase of a new Mac or iOS device in late 2013 and has been free to all users since early 2017.
A camcorder is an electronic device originally combining a video camera and a videocassette recorder.
VLC media player is a free and open-source, portable, cross-platform media player software, and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project. VLC is available for desktop operating systems, and mobile platforms, such as Android, iOS, iPadOS, Tizen, Windows 10 Mobile, and Windows Phone. VLC is also available on digital distribution platforms such as Apple's App Store, Google Play, and Microsoft Store.
MicroMV is a discontinued proprietary videotape format introduced in October 2001 by Sony. It is the smallest videotape format — 70% smaller than MiniDV or about the size of two US quarter coins; it is also smaller than a Digital8 or DV cassette and slightly smaller than an audio microcassette. It was the first helical scan tape system using MR read head introduced to the market. Each cassette can hold up to 60 minutes of video.
The following comparison of video players compares general and technical information for notable software media player programs.
HDV is a format for recording of high-definition video on DV cassette tape. The format was originally developed by JVC and supported by Sony, Canon, and Sharp. The four companies formed the HDV Consortium in September 2003.
Windows Movie Maker is a discontinued video editing software program by Microsoft. It was a part of Windows Essentials software suite and offered the ability to create and edit videos as well as to publish them on OneDrive, Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube, and Flickr.
Vegas Pro is a video editing software package for non-linear editing (NLE) originally published by Sonic Foundry, then by Sony Creative Software, and now by Magix. The software runs on the Windows operating system.
GOM Player is a media player for Windows, developed by the GOM & Company of South Korea. Its main features include the ability to play some broken media files and find missing codecs using a codec finder service.
Logic Studio is a discontinued professional music production suite by Apple Inc. The first version of Logic Studio was unveiled on September 12, 2007. It claims to be the largest collection of modeled instruments, sampler instruments, effect plug-ins, and audio loops ever put in a single application.
M2TS is a filename extension used for the Blu-ray Disc Audio-Video (BDAV) MPEG-2 Transport Stream (M2TS) container file format. It is used for multiplexing audio, video and other streams. It is based on the MPEG-2 transport stream container. This container format is commonly used for high definition video on Blu-ray Disc and AVCHD.
The Apple Intermediate Codec is a high-quality 8-bit 4:2:0 video codec used mainly as a less processor-intensive way of working with long-GOP MPEG-2 footage such as HDV. It is recommended for use with all HD workflows in Final Cut Express, iMovie, and until Final Cut Pro version 5. The Apple Intermediate Codec abbreviated AIC is designed by Apple Inc. to be an intermediate format in an HDV and AVCHD workflow. It features high performance and quality, being less processor intensive to work with than other editing formats. Unlike native MPEG-2 based HDV - and similar to the standard-definition DV codec - the Apple Intermediate Codec does not use temporal compression, enabling every frame to be decoded immediately without decoding other frames. As a result of this, the Apple Intermediate Codec takes three to four times more space than HDV.
Free Studio is a freeware set of multimedia programs developed by DVDVideoSoft. The programs are available in one integrated package and also as separate downloads.
AVS Video Editor is a video editing software published by Online Media Technologies Ltd. It is a part of AVS4YOU software suite which includes video, audio, image editing and conversion, disc editing and burning, document conversion and registry cleaner programs. It offers the opportunity to create and edit videos with a vast variety of video and audio effects, text and transitions; capture video from screen, web or DV cameras and VHS tape; record voice; create menus for discs, as well as to save them to plenty of video file formats, burn to discs or publish on Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, etc.
