As 47% of Americans prefer Netflix over any other video streaming service, today video streaming is not only restricted to Netflix but many B2B organizations use video streaming service for internal streaming such as training videos, onboarding or conferencing videos. If you’re a business interested in streaming you most probably also be interested in video encoding or video encoder for streaming.
In this blog, we’ll give you an overview of video encoding and why encode in the first place. What are video codecs and video containers, and moreover, the difference between video encoding and transcoding? Further down the blog, we’ll look at live stream encoding in a video platform. Let’s get started!
What is Video Encoding?
So, what is video encoding? Basically, video encoding refers to the process of converting raw or binary video format into a digital format that is compatible with every browser and device. In the process, the video size is reduced from gigabytes to megabytes, known as compression.
The Need to Encode
Video encoding is crucial for video delivery of live and on-demand streaming. Since it relates to streaming, one of the benefits is it does compression. Compression basically reduces the bandwidth and size while maintaining the video quality experience. The benefit of video compression includes
- Less storage required
- Smaller size overall
- Low transmission bandwidth
This is where a specific type of video compression that is video encoding comes into play. So, video encoding converts binary to digital format and prepares your video files for the proper format and specification required for playback. However, the process of video encoding is dictated by video codecs. We will learn about them below
Video Codecs and Video Containers
Video codecs are known to be video compression standards. Each codec has two components, mainly an encoder comprising of video for transmission and a decoder for playback.
DO YOU KNOW? Codecs are the combination of two words, COder and DECoder.
The goal of every video codec is to lower the bit rate and shrink file size without affecting the video quality. Every browser and device supports a different codec, and having the right video codec of encoded video is necessary for video playback. Some of the popular codecs are listed below
- 264 (AVC)
- 265 (HEVC)
- AV1
- 266 (VVC)
- Quicktime
- VP9
- MPEG-2
- DivX
- WMV
- XviD
The codecs should not be confused with a container. They don’t define the encoding and decoding part instead; they store bytes from codec so that video playback is compatible with different devices. When the encoding is done, all the components are packaged into a container. Examples of container formats are MKV (Matroska Video), MOV (short for MOVie), AVI (Audio Video Interleave) and others. The containers store not only video audio information but also metadata.
Video Transcoding vs. Video Encoding
Now you are familiar with video encoding and the codecs, we shall look towards another familiar process that is video transcoding.
Transcoding includes taking an encoded file and decoding it to modify it in some way. This can be referred to as re-encoding of data into a more common codec, lower resolution by transizing it, transrating the file into various bitrate, or transmuxing it into a scalable protocol.
The main difference between video transcoding and video encoding is that transcoding can be encoding as it re-encodes video files in different formats; however, encoding isn’t always transcoding. Both processes allow you to
- Improve buffering for streaming
- Reduce video size
- Convert older formats into new formats
- Alter the audio format or quality
- Change the resolution of the aspect ratio
- Make video files compatible for playback.
Why Not Have a Video Platform to Do It for You?
If you want high performance with the latest video encoding and processing technologies for live and on-demand video streaming, consider having VIDIZMO. Fulfils all the video requirements including video encoder for streaming.
VIDIZMO with advanced features allows you to stream videos seamlessly with low latency and adaptive bitrate streaming. Provides optimized video quality no matter the size or density. We offer multi-codec video delivery using the server of your choice, whether on-premise or third-party clouds like AWS or Azure. VIDIZMO streaming platform has the encoding technology integrated with our software to save you the hassle of automatically encoding your videos in the background.
Not only do those videos leverage advanced AI technology where the search is made easy peasy. The video content is organized in a video library, and users are assigned roles defining access management.
Click here to learn more or make the most of VIDIZMO’s free trial
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