ITMS :: University of Waterloo

As video, and video delivered over the internet, sees increasing application in the academic realm, attention should be paid to video compression formats or codecs. The production studio of ITMS can provide consultation and recommendations on this topic. Contact Scott Charles at x36784, Dianne Naughton at x38319, Orest Dorkowsky at x38320, or Alan Kirker at x37109.

Some points to consider:

type of content being shown on the recording and the related issues (e.g. lecture, PowerPoint inclusion, class/audience participation/questions etc.);
length of the recording, and therefore its physical size in terms of weight (megabytes);
size of the clip in terms of spatial dimensions (e.g. a popular web format is 320 x 240 pixels);
the desired sound quality of the finished production;
where the finished video will be located (e.g. departmental server, UW-ACE, etc.)

A careful balance of these, and sometimes other factors, needs to be struck in order to achieve the most effective production.

For the purpose of comparison, here are some selected formats and resolutions, and corresponding size. Flash™ Video is popular as it can be embedded directly in web pages and requires only a web browser with an up-to-date Flash™ player to view. Other formats may require downloading of the clip to play on your local hard disk on a player such as the Quicktime™ Player or the Windows Media™ Player.

	dimensions: 320 x 240 length: 60 seconds size: 1.5 mb codec: Flash™ On2VP6 video quality: 150 kbps audio quality: 32 kbps mono
	dimensions: 320 x 240 length: 60 seconds size: 3.6 mb codec: Flash™ On2VP6 video quality: 400 kbps audio quality: 96 kbps stereo
	dimensions: 320 x 240 length: 60 seconds size: 5.5 mb codec: Flash™ On2VP6 video quality: 700 kbps audio quality: 128 kbps stereo
	dimensions: 320 x 240 length: 60 seconds size: 1.8 mb codec: Windows Media™ video quality: 185 kbps audio quality: 64 kbps stereo
	dimensions: 320 x 240 length: 60 seconds size: 2.5 mb codec: Windows Media™ video quality: 384 kbps audio quality: 64 kbps stereo
	dimensions: 320 x 240 length: 60 seconds size: 784 kb codec: MPEG-4 H.264 video quality: 80 kbps audio quality: 20 kbps mono
	dimensions: 320 x 240 length: 60 seconds size: 2 mb codec: MPEG-4 H.264 video quality: 220 kbps audio quality: 80 kbps stereo
	dimensions: 320 x 240 length: 60 seconds size: 5.7 mb codec: MPEG-4 H.264 video quality: 672 kbps audio quality: 128 kbps stereo

Comparison of some Video Compression Formats