Video principles course

This online course introduces the fundamentals of video capture, compression, storage and transmission for engineers and technicians in the media technology, broadcasting and telecommunications sectors. The course is aimed at those who are responsible for the technical infrastructure in digital video production, post-production and transmission environments.

Prerequisites:

You will get the most out of this online video principles course if you already have an understanding of the basic properties of analogue and digital signals. It is recommended that the PTT course SRA: "Analogue and digital signals" is studied before attempting this course.

Summary of topics covered:

Video fundamentals inc. principles of, and comparison between, interlaced and progressive scanning, video aspect ratio, PAL, SECAM and NTSC TV systems standards, and analogue video interfaces inc composite, SCART and S-video.

Advantages of the digital representation of video and the processes involved in encoding an analogue signal with reference to the ITU standard BT.601.

Methods of representing colour information in a video signal with reference to RGB, luminance and chroma components and the 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 formats.

Factors that affect the resolution of a video image and comparison of standard definition (SDTV) and high definition television (HDTV) formats.

Principles and capabilities of MPEG video compression with reference to I, B and P frames and the concept and structure of a Group Of Pictures (GOP). 

Comparison of bit rates necessary to transmit standard definition and high definition television when uncompressed and when using MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 compression.

Capabilities and applications of various audio codecs including MP2, AAC and AC-3.

Roles and characterisitics of the digital video interfaces: Serial Digital Interface (SDI), High Definition SDI (HD-SDI), Digital Video Broadcast Asynchronous Serial Interface (DVB-ASI) and High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI).

Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) broadcast formats and advantages of the second generation of Terrestrial DVB (DVB-T) with reference to the provision of HDTV services and broadcasting to nomadic receivers.

Methods of ensuring audio and video recordings retain their time relationship with reference to "lip sync", clapboards, SMPTE time code, and methods of transmitting time codes.

Advantages of a combination of digital encoding, digital file storage and computer-based processing of media.

Storage capacity and applications of the various devices used to store encoded media inc. video cassette formats, optical discs and Flash memory devices.

The role of the various categories of metadata in media asset management.

The role of the MXF and AAF file formats.

The structure of an MXF file with reference to the inclusion of metadata and the logical representation of media tracks and their timing relationship.

Number of modules: 7
Study time: 9 hours

Download and view the MediaNet course summary in Adobe PDF format