Multitool Linux: Practical Uses for Open Source Software
The Formats
There are several video file formats used for storing video. Here is a short list of the more common ones.
| MPEG-1 | A standard optimized for CD-ROM. Video data is played back at a rate of 1.5 Mbit/sec. |
| MPEG-2 | A newer standard designed for video data rates of 15.2 million samples/sec. Some common devices using this standard are direct broadcast satellite system, digital cable system, and HDTV. |
| AVI | Developed by Microsoft to play videos in the Windows environment. |
| Quicktime | Developed by Apple Computers to play videos in the Machintosh environment. |
| DivX | A new format intended for streaming video over the Internet. |
In addition to file formats, you have to consider the compression/ decompression algorithm, or codec, used to encode a video data stream. For example, many different codecs can be used for the AVI file format. The one I will be focusing on is MJPEG, since this is the codec used by the software that works with the frame grabber device I have installed in my computer.