Format, Frame Size and More: Digital Video Basics for Activists

In celebration of American Archives Month and the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage (October 27), we are releasing three new videos on video archiving and preservation.  Earlier this month, we shared Planning to Preserve Video for Human Rights. This is the second video in the series. 

Have you ever looked at your camera manual and wondered what on earth “H.264” or “60p” means? Are you unsure whether you should film at “720” or “1080,” and what the difference is? If so, our new video is for you!

Deconstructing Digital Video for Activists is a straightforward primer on the most important technical characteristics of video. It explains concepts like video format and encoding, frame size, frame rate, and scan method in everyday language with visual examples.

Understanding these properties of video can help you make good choices when setting up your camera to film. Knowing the characteristics of the videos you’ve created also helps you manage them effectively later on, since you’ll want to preserve them with their original specifications, and possibly make copies with different properties for specific uses (e.g. web upload, video editing).

Watch the video now:

For more information on managing videos throughout their lifecycle, check out our Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video. And stay tuned for another new video, What is Video Metadata? on October 27th.

We hope to continue creating videos on archiving and preserving activist video.  Are there topics that you would like us to cover? Please let us know!



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