Digital Video Fundamentals - Frames & Framerates

At the heart of film and any kind of video is a series of still images displayed many times per second to give the illusion of motion. At its most basic, a frame is a single still picture that fills the display screen. This terminology is inherited from film to analog and digital video, and has different uses in all three.

The Digital Video Fundamentals Series is designed to give an overview of various video topics. This installment introduces progressive and interlaced frames, as well as framerates and a little about framerate conversions. Along with the other guides in the series, it should help prepare you to work with the digital video format of your choice. Once you understand the basic concepts involved, you can start making sense of whatever reference sources or guides you find, as well as hopefully learning to sort out the maze of misleading or flat out factually incorrect sources that are especially easy to find on the internet.

Other Digital Video Fundamentals Guides

• Frames and Framerates
• Resolution and Aspect Ratio
• Color Formats
• Lossy Video Compression
• MPEG-2 Encoding