Fundamentals of Digital Video

There are several broad attributes that can be used to describe video. For example, video can be categorized as real time or pre-recorded, streaming or pre-positioned, and high resolution or low resolution. The network load is dependant on the type of video being sent. Pre-recorded, pre-positioned, low resolution video is little more than a file transfer while real-time streaming video demands a high performance network. Many generic video applications fall somewhere in between. This allows non-real-time streaming video applications to work acceptably over the public Internet. Tuning the network and media encoders are both important aspects of deploying video on an IP network.