VIDEO FORMATS

It used to be so easy to start out movie making - you'd buy an 8mm or Super8 camera; or if you were really industrious, a 16mm camera and shoot and edit your movies.

In the 1980s, shooting and editing movies got only slightly more complicated with the introduction of VHS, VHS-C and Betamax. You could read a two page article and know the differences between competing video formats. When video went digital though, everything went out the window. Suddenly there was a bewildering array of video formats - .wmv, .asf, .rm, .mov, .mpeg, for compressing files, - and on top of that, many of these standards had their own substandards (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, etc.) How's anyone supposed to keep it straight?
Containers and Codecs

Possibly one of the most confusing things about digital video formats is the idea that there's a "container" and "codec" - You might think it's enough to make you yearn for the days when you could just put a tape in the camera and start recording, but you'd be wrong. The plethora of video formats mean that whatever type of video production you're doing, there's a good way to make it happen. Twenty years ago everybody was watching movies the same way - either on a screen via a projector, or on a television set. Today many, many more options exist and people are taking advantage of them all - from high-end HD video with surround sound shown in a top of the line home theater, to video streaming from a cellphone - video is everywhere and having a grasp of the various formats will ensure that your video gets where it needs to in the best way.
An Analogy

Trying to figure out exactly what containers and codecs are can be a little bewildering because it's a very technical subject. You can think of containers as a type of publication: a hardback book, a glossy magazine, a newspaper, a pamphlet, a gum wrapper - all of which can contain words and other things like photographs, or cartoons, and yet each one works in a different way. Think of the codec as the way of displaying the information you want in your publication. You can, for example, print War and Peace on Bazooka Joe bubble gum wrappers, but it will take thousands and thousands of them and nobody will want to read it that way; in the same way you can put your vacation footage on an uncompressed DV format, but you won't be able to stream it over the web. Similarly, you likely want your copy of War and Peace to be beautifully bound in hardback, but that's not the proper container for a takeout menu someone's going to shove in your mail slot. Words with drawings could properly be placed in a comic book, or a hardback book, or a newspaper, but the images in an art catalog or high-end fashion magazine require heavy-weight glossy paper to reproduce properly. Every video application has a proper codec and container. To add one more layer of complexity: both codecs and containers go in and out of style - so a format which was popular a few years ago, may be something few people are using today.

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Lossy vs Lossless Compression

Usually, when video data is compressed some of it is lost. Video compression software works by looking for redundancies in a frame (such as one bit of blue sky next to another bit of blue sky) and representing the redundancies together. At very high rates of compression this becomes obvious, but at lower rates it's difficult for people to notice. There arises a desire in every movie maker to try to use lossless formats, which preserve all the original data, but the compression ratios aren't good enough (yet) to make them practical. Choices at the moment are to use the highest quality compression available for your intended purpose and to have multiple versions of your files for multiple uses (i.e. one file for web-streaming, another for disk-based distribution, another for standard definition DVD, another for Blu-ray, etc.).

Edit and Distribute in the Highest Quality

The highest quality video format is going to be the format you captured your video in. While digital files do not degrade in quality during copying, every time they are compressed with a "lossy" compression they lose data, so converting your uncompressed DV formatted files even into a high quality MP4 will result in a loss of quality. While it's necessary to compress files in order to be able to share them, you should avoid re-compressing any more than you have to. Keep your master files in the original format; edit, and create versions at whatever sizes necessary - but always from the originals. Don't burn a DVD from a file that's already been compressed into a low resolution file for streaming over the internet, instead create a separate, high resolution, file from your editing software. A lot of the work in deciding how to compress video files can be done by your video editing software. Most consumer editing software today will have presets for various methods of distribution the software's video compressor will use, such as DVD or even iPhone video, - your DVD burning software could automatically know which format to use in order to make a DVD that will play on home theaters.

Containers
We'll take a look at some containers and then at some codecs. A video's file extension usually refers to the container. A few containers have codecs that they almost always use and other containers are often used with many different codecs.

Audio Video Interleave (.avi)
Developed by Microsoft and released with Windows 3.1 way back when false teeth were still made out of wood, AVI files have been a work horse of digital video. Although its popularity has been waning, lots of legacy video in AVI can be found all over the web. More recently, AVI has been abandoned for Microsoft's WMV (Windows Media Video).

One of the most maddening things about AVI today is that the format doesn't allow for specifying an aspect ratio, so a 16:9 AVI video may start displaying at 4:3 - this is less of a problem if your player allows you to manually select aspect ratios. If you're watching in the non-pro version of QuickTime though, you'll have to learn to live with people being unusually narrow.

Advanced Systems Format (.asf)
ASF is a proprietary Microsoft container that usually houses files compressed with Microsoft's WMV codec - to make things confusing, the files are usually designated .wmv and not .asf. The ASF container has the advantage over many other formats that it is able to include DRM (Digital Rights Management), a form of copy protection.

QuickTime (.mov or .qt)
QuickTime was developed by Apple and supports a wide variety of codecs. It's a proprietary format though and Apple decides what it supports.

Advanced Video Coding, High Definition (AVCHD)
AVCHD is a very popular container for data compressed with the H.264 - it comes to us through a collaboration between Sony and Panasonic as a format for digital camcorders. It's a file based format, meaning that it's meant to be stored and played back on disks or other storage devices (such as compact flash drives or SD cards). It supports both standard definition and a variety of high definition variants from 720 to 1080p. The latest version (AVCHD 2.0) also supports 3D as well as some high frame rates.

Flash Video (.flv, .swf)
Flash was originally created by a company called Macromedia which was acquired by Adobe in 2005. Flash has been around for a while and comes in multiple versions, some better than others. Older Flash video often uses the Sorenson codec, newer Flash uses H.264. It's an extremely widespread container format used for streaming video across the web. Its major downside is that it will not play on iOS devices such as iPads or iPhones, a conscious decision made by Apple CEO Steve Jobs who famously called Flash "buggy" and blamed it for problems with the Apple Operating System. Jobs opted to skip Flash support in the belief that the HTML5 standardization of video display would solve streaming problems. (HTML5 and the way it handles video are beyond the scope of this article, but you can read about it

Codecs that are Also Containers
As if things aren't confusing enough, some containers have codecs with the same name.

MPEG-1
MPEG-1 is used almost exclusively for Video Compact Disks (VCD), which are extraordinarily popular in some parts of the world but never caught on in the U.S. - the video quality is substantially lower than DVDs.

MPEG-2 (H.262)
MPEG-2 is a container format, but there is also a codec of the same name, which most people call H.262, so that it's not so confusing. Though a world where we call something H.262 is already more confusing than it ought to be. MPEG-2 is used for DVDs and pretty much nothing else with the exception of broadcast High Definition Television (HDTV).
Codecs

Windows Media Video (.wmv)
Once it was realized that the Internet was a delivery vehicle for things like video, people started trying to come up with ways to share video that wouldn't take up a lot of bandwidth and disk space. One of the big advances was the idea of "streaming video" - where your computer downloads only a part of a video and begins to play while the download continues - this means you don't have to wait two hours for a movie to download before you can start watching. Over the years the WMV format has grown to include support for high definition 720 and 1080 video. To make things complicated, files that end in .wmv are usually stored in an .asf container.

H.264
Not only do you need to call the MPEG-2 compression codec H.262, you have to keep from confusing it with H.264, which is used to compress Blu-ray disks as well as lots of web video. One of the very nice things about H.264 is that you can use it at very low and very high bitrates. The H.264 will send highly compressed low resolution video across the web and then happily encode your high definition movie at super high bitrates for delivery to a High Definition television. This is a very common codec for camcorders and digital video cameras. Its container is AVCHD.
Switching Between Formats

It's possible to convert video from one format to another by using a video format converter such as the Kigo Video Converter, which is available for both Macintosh and Windows for $40. If you do transfer your old AVI files to more popular MP4 files, remember that re-compression causes degradation, so don't delete the originals, archive them somewhere.

What's the best video format?
While there isn't one "best video format", there are best video formats for particular jobs. Things to be aware of when choosing a video format, apart from the intended audience, (Will they be watching video streaming over the Internet? Do they have a fast connection? Do they have a DVD player? Do they have a Blu-ray player?), are the longevity of the format and how widespread it's adoption. Flash, for example, is a very popular video format and its distributor, Adobe, will probably be around for a while. On the other hand, at the moment Flash doesn't play on Apple's popular iPad or iPhone. Currently, a good bet for a forward-looking, high-quality, versatile video format is H.264, aka, MPEG-4/AVC (Advanced Video Coding), though it really needs a better name. H.264 is supported by a number of important players including Microsoft, Apple and Adobe, though in early 2011 Google dropped support for H.264 from its Chrome browser citing the desire to use only open-source (i.e. non-patented, royalty free) standards.

Read 'YOU CAN NEGOTIATE ANYTHING'

The truth is, we all need to be better influencers. Hardly a day passes that we don’t try to influence ourselves or others to do something different. We do our best to motivate employees to demonstrate more concern for profitability. We struggle to enable our teams to complete projects on time and on budget. In summary, we continually work on ways to exert
our influence, but we regularly fall short.

In fact, in spite of the fact that we’re routinely trying to help ourselves and others alter behavior, few of us can articulate a model of what it takes to do so. It’s time this changed.

Again, everyday, you negotiate for something: prestige, money, security, love. This straight-talking guide will show you how to get what you want by dealing successfully with your mate, your boss, your children, your best friends and even yourself.

As Herb Cohen counsels, "Power is based upon perception; if you think you've got it then you've got it. Be patient, be personal, be informed-- and you can bargain successfully for anything." Based on his book that spent over nine months on the New York Times bestseller list, the author presents specific guidelines, personal anecdotes and practical advice drawn from his three decades of successful negotiating experience. Here is a wealth of information and the motivation that you need to succeed.

By knowing how to negotiate, you will be able to to successfully lead change initiatives in your organization, transform corporate culture, reduce errors and project failures, diagnose the real causes behind problems and create real solutions, and plant influence across the organization, family, business- with or without formal authority.

Read 'YOU CAN NEGOTIATE ANYTHING' and  practice!

How To Probe for More Information from your Client

The art of probing or rather questioning someone, requires you occasionally to get into deeper detail about some particular issue or problem. You must also spot the signals they are sending that there is more here than meets the immediate eye. 

 Before you begin probing (in this case a client), you need a road map, and the only way to get that information is to extract it from your 'initial' conversations. Unfortunately, if you come right out and ask, it can sound like you're being nosy and, worst case, you can end up sounding like a police interrogator.  

These are some steps to put in consideration when probing:

• Do your research. Never ask a client a question that you can get answered somewhere else.   

• Ask creative questions. To keep the conversation from sounding like an interrogation, sprinkle it with questions that have built-in, positive assumptions. 

• Listen. Really listen. Listening is not a part of questioning; questioning is a part of listening. Listening -- completely and intently -- shows respect for the contact's knowledge and provides an opportunity for the contact to expound upon his or her experience. The more carefully you listen, the more you'll learn.

When seeking more detail from your client, there are a number of types probes you can use, depending on what they are saying and what you want to discover. Remember... you do get what you ask for!  

Here are some probing questions:

1. Seek for Clarification

When they use vague or unclear language, or when you just need more detail, seek to further understand them by asking for clarification. What exactly did you mean by 'XXX'? What, specifically, will you do next week? Could you tell me more about YY? 

2. Purpose

Sometimes they say things where the purpose of why they said it is not clear. Ask them to justify their statement or dig for underlying causes. Why did you say that? What were you thinking about when you said XX?

3. Relevance

If they seem to be going off-topic, you can check whether what they are saying is relevant or salient to the main purpose of inquiry. Is that relevant to the main question? How is what you are saying related to what I asked?

4. Completeness and accuracy

You can check that they are giving you a full and accurate account by probing for more detail and checking against other information you have. Sometimes people make genuine errors (and sometimes deliberate), which you may want to check. Is that all? Is there anything you have missed out? How do you know that is true? How does that compare with what you said before?

5. Repetition

One of the most effective ways of getting more detail is simply by asking the same question again. You can use the same words or you can rephrase the question (perhaps they did not fully understand it first time).

Where did you go?... What places did you visit? You can also repeat what they have said ('echo question'), perhaps with emphasis on the area where you want more detail. He asked you to marry him??

6. Examples

When they talk about something vaguely, you may ask for specific examples. This is particularly useful in interviews, where you want to test both their truthfulness and the depth behind what they are claiming.

Sorry, I don't understand. Could you help by giving an example? Could you give me an example of when you did XXX? Tell me about a time when you ...

7. Extension

When they have not given you enough information about something, ask them to tell you more.

Could you tell me more about that, please? And what happened after that? Then...

8. Evaluation

To discover both how judgmental they are and how they evaluate, use question that seek evaluation:

How good would you say it is? How do you know it is worthless? What are the pros and cons of this situation?

9. Emotional

Particularly if they are talking in the third person or otherwise unemotionally and you want to find out how they feel, you can ask something like: And how did you feel about that?

When you do this, do be careful: you may have just asked a cathartic question that results in them exploding with previously-suppressed emotion.

Asking questions is a fundamental part of finding information and for subtle (and otherwise) persuasion. Use positive words and be energetic and enthusiastic in your delivery, as you need to motivate someone to consider the questions you are asking. Ideally you want to inspire them to respond in a likewise manner and to open up the call into a conversation rather than a set of questions and answers.

Again, use your voice to project professional confidence as your client needs to have confidence in you.  Always write down what you want to say and recite this so that you are prepared. Attention should be given to ensuring that conversations are natural and not forced. Listen to what your client has to say and link the answers into the next question.

GRAMMAR for Television and Film enthusiasts

Television and film use certain common guidelines in audiovisual media often referred to as the GRAMMAR to convey meaning through particular camera and editing techniques.

 Grammar of the Shot helps you learn how to use the basic grammar of making films and videos. Designed as an easy-to-use reference, this book shows you in no uncertain terms what you absolutely need to know to put together your own film or video, shot by shot. Whether you are just learning how to frame a shot, or if you just need a refresher, this book gives you a basic toolkit of how to build a successful visual story that flows smoothly. Grammar of the Shot begins with an explanation of the essential visual language of film-making. The book takes you from the basic shape of a shot, to different types to shots, to composition of visual elements within each frame. You will be given the basic building blocks essential for successful shot composition, shot lighting, screen direction, 3D elements, camera movement, and many general practices that make for a richer, and not least multi-layered visual presentations. 

Most importantly, you will be given crucial background information to expand your visual vocabulary and help jump-start your career in film and video. Each topic is covered succinctly and is accompanied by clear photographs and diagrams that illustrate the key concepts presented in the book. Grammar of the Shot is simple, elegant, and easy to use with clear overview of the principles of shooting... timeless information that will improve your work.

 Together with its companion volume Grammar of the Edit, these little books are all the beginning filmmaker needs. If you want to get to grips with the editing, either in film or video, this book sets down, in a simple uncomplicated way, the fundamental knowledge you will need to make a good edit between two shots. Its intended primarily for the trainee to the craft of editing, Grammar of the Edit, is embedded in basic, jargon-free, language, illustrated by easy to follow diagrams. The book explains in simple terms the fundamental components of an edit. It lists, examines and explains the conventions and working practices of post-production editing and has been extensively class-tested globally.

Both Grammar of the Shot and Grammar of the Edit are a must have for every filmmaker’s reference library.

CD and DVD Burning Guide

Nero StartSmart: an example of CD abd DVD burning software

To avoid burning unusable, unplayable, incompatible or defective discs observe the following:

1.  Use high quality media.  Defects in the media like scratches, scuffs, stains, contamination, defects in the plastic, will cause defects in your written disc. 
2. Keep your hands off the disc... or at least the underside of the disc. Fingerprints or dirt on the bottom of the disc can cause distortion of the writing or reading laser.
3. Keep your discs dust-free. 
4. Never wipe discs in a circle. 
5. Plan your burn - figure out what kind of disc you want to make.  If you want to make the disc playable in an audio CD player, you can’t format it as a ROM (data) disc.  If you want a DVD to play in DVD Video players, you can’t format it as a DVD-ROM. 
6. Burn using Disc-at-Once mode whenever practical.  Track-At-Once mode is meant to help avoid buffer underruns on slower computers, but causes overlapping sectors in between tracks called "link transitions".  
7. Turn off other programs, including screen savers.  If you have problems with buffer underruns, you should choose a slower writing speed.  You should also turn off virus protection software.  For the best results, don’t run any other programs while you are burning.
8. Keep your hard disks defragmented.  While this is a good idea for better PC performance in general, it is an especially good idea for people who do a lot of audio or video editing, or other multimedia production.  If your hard disk is highly fragmented, it will have to seek to many sections in order to read and write each file.  This will slow down the transfer rate of data to and from the hard drive, and it could cause buffer underruns when burning.
9. While higher speed recording saves time and generally results in great discs, slower speed recordings may give you your best chance for a higher quality disc, with lower error rates. 
10. Always use a felt-tip marker to write on the top of your recordable discs.  Never use a ball-point pen, or roller ball pen.  These pens could damage the recording layer, which is just beneath the printed top layer.
11. Don’t leave open sessions.  Unless you are storing data in increments to a recordable disc (using multi-session recording), you should "finalize" your recording.  This will allow your burning software program to write a lead-out to the end of your session.  This is necessary for compatibility with audio CD players.