Video is demanding

Video is becoming common on the Internet with sites like Youtube and Apple iTunes. Video data requires large files and therefore high speed connections, and, like audio, it is generally compressed. There are many video codecs, but two common ones are the proprietary Sorenson codec and one based on the H.264 international standard. Youtube uses the FLV format with the Sorenson codec, and FLV players are installed on over 90 percent of the computers on the Internet. Apple uses H.264 with their MOV format.

As you can imaging, a large, high-definition Apple video is nicer than a small Youtube video, but the file sizes are also very different. The following table compares Youtube video with two of Apple's high definition formats:

Type Display size Megabytes
per minute
Youtube FLV (Sorenson codec) 240x320 2.4
HD 730p (H.264 codec) 720x1280 42.2
HD 1080p (H.264 codec) 1080x1920 68.1

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