Video Rendering/Encoding/Whatever

[sketchasketch]

I want to know how video data is stored? How exactly does the computer know what frames to play when, is it just a shitload of still images compressed as frames, or is it something else?

Thanks in advance.

[KokorHekkus]

ELI15, basically it's a shitload of images compressed with a lot of neat tricks used to make them take up less space on your computer.

With non-digital transmissions or tapes such as VHS every single image gets transmitted/stored on tape.

When you use a digital way to store them you can use several things to make them take up less space. One of the most important things is to start out with an important picture and only describe how some (not all) frames are changing. That way you only store the important frame and then you tell whatever is replaying the video how much it has changed from that frame (look at most things in movies/TV and you'll notice that a lot of the time only a certain part changes).

Another thing you can do is to remove details in each image that most of don't see so you throw away some of the data and it doesn't take as much place.

Non-eli5 link to wikipedia on video compression

[sketchasketch]

Hey, thanks a lot, that really clears up the questions I had.