There are complex relationships between the video quality, the amount of data used to represent the video (determined by the bit rate), the complexity of the encoding and decoding algorithms, sensitivity to data losses and errors, ease of editing, random access, and end-to-end delay (latency).
Around the time when the compact disc entered the market as a digital-format replacement for analog audio, it became feasible to also store and convey video in digital form.
Since then, engineers and mathematicians have developed a number of solutions for achieving this goal that involve compressing the digital video data.
[1][2][3] During the late 1980s, a number of companies began experimenting with DCT lossy compression for video coding, leading to the development of the H.261 standard.
[4] H.261 was the first practical video coding standard,[5] and was developed by a number of companies, including Hitachi, PictureTel, NTT, BT, and Toshiba, among others.
It was developed in 2003 by a number of organizations, primarily Panasonic, Godo Kaisha IP Bridge and LG Electronics.
[9] H.264 is the main video encoding standard for Blu-ray Discs, and is widely used by streaming internet services such as YouTube, Netflix, Vimeo, and iTunes Store, web software such as Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft Silverlight, and various HDTV broadcasts over terrestrial and satellite television.
Because of the design of analog video signals, which represent luminance (luma) and color information (chrominance, chroma) separately, a common first step in image compression in codec design is to represent and store the image in a YCbCr color space.
Professional video codecs designed to function at much higher bitrates and to record a greater amount of color information for post-production manipulation sample in 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 ratios.
Some amount of spatial and temporal downsampling may also be used to reduce the raw data rate before the basic encoding process.
Codecs that make use of a wavelet transform are also entering the market, especially in camera workflows that involve dealing with RAW image formatting in motion sequences.
It is therefore possible for multiple codecs to be available in the same product, reducing the need to choose a single dominant video compression format to achieve interoperability.
The trade-off between compression power, speed, and fidelity (including artifacts) is usually considered the most important figure of technical merit.