What is Digital Video?

The term digital video refers to any format that stores digital audio-visual information. So this could be a QuickTime movie or an AVI file, it could be on a DVD, zip disk, CD, mini DV tape or a streaming movie on the Internet.

As the audio-visual information is stored digitally, copies can be made without a loss in quality and it is much easier to edit and manipulate than with traditional processes.

If you own a digital video camera then you will be working with both digital video and DV.

The term DV does not mean the same as digital video. DV is an actual type of video format. Other types of video format include VHS and BETA.

With the DV format, a digital camera is used to convert audio-visual information in front of the camera into digital information. This process takes place inside the camera. It has a fixed size, uses DV tape and the DV compression type.

How do you Bring it into Your Computer?

You cannot use Flash to take video directly from a tape. You will need to use a video editing program like Adobe Premiere, iMovie or Final Cut Pro for this.

In order to bring video into your computer, it must first be converted into a digital form that your computer will understand.

There are several ways to do this:

1. Use a digital video camera and...