1. BTEC
Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production
Unit 64: Motion Graphics and Compositing Video
Compression

2. BTEC
Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production
Unit 64: Motion Graphics and Compositing Video
Compression
Codec is short for coder-decoder and describes the method in
which video data is encoded into a file and decoded when the file
is played back.
Most video is compressed during encoding, and so the terms
codec and compressor are often used interchangeably.

3. BTEC
Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production
Unit 64: Motion Graphics and Compositing Video
Compression
Transcoding is the process of converting from one codec to
another.
Codecs can be Lossless, which means that they do not throw away
any data, or Lossy, which means that data is lost during encoding.
Lossless codecs are higher quality than lossy codecs, but produce
larger file sizes.
In a video workflow, you should avoid transcoding to a lossy codec
until final output.

4. BTEC
Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production
Unit 64: Motion Graphics and Compositing Video
Compression
Examples of common codecs are:
Codec Lossless Recommended Use
DV-PAL No Capture/edit/output of DV-PAL video from camera; archive DV-PAL video
HDV No Capture/edit/output of HDV video from camera; archive HDV video
H.264 No Transcode video for web & computer playback (not suitable for editing)
MPEG-2 No Transcode video for DVD
Animation Yes Output/archive video (mainly motion graphics, animation, etc) from After Effects, Photoshop
Apple Intermediate Codec Yes Transcode AVCHD/H.264 video for editing; output/archive video
Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy) Yes Transcode AVCHD/H.264 video for editing; output/archive video
Apple ProRes 422 (LT) Yes Transcode AVCHD/H.264 video for editing; output/archive video
http://wsa.wikidot.com/tbm:video-basics