Copying Digital Video: An Overview

Do you remember the old days of video cassettes? They were bulky, illegal to copy, and if you owned the content, you needed to purchase two VCRs to make your copies. Of course, if you were planning on sending a copy of the tape, such as baby's first steps, oversees, you were most likely going to be highly disappointed, since the European video format was decidedly different from the one used in the United States, and it was next to impossible to find a company that would transfer the images.

Copying digital video, on the other hand, is a whole new ballgame, and files, images, and videos can now be shared almost instantly across the globe. Take a look at the overview of this exciting new technology.
Digital video can be copied and shared online. You can take a video at any time with your digital camera. You will quite often notice that today's cameras and camcorders come with cables that will permit you to hook it up to your computer's USB port.

With the help of some software - often already on your computer - you will be able to upload your digital video and then save it to your hard drive. From there you can send the content via email to anyone you desire. In the alternative, you may post it to your website and save it as a file to the webpage. The kind of technology that enables this kind of digital video copying is referred to as streaming video technology.

If you are still relying on the Digital Video tapes inside your camcorder, you will be able to copy your digital video to a regular VHS tape without having to purchase another VCR! Instead, you will be able to hook up your camcorder directly to your VCR and then copy the content thusly. This is a wonderful way to copy as well as preserve your keepsake footage for a lifetime.

Many computer savvy people shy away from the VHS option, simply because they believe they can see the writing on the wall that will make this technology obsolete rather soon. As a matter of fact, enter the average big box appliance store and go to the video section, and you will be surprised to notice that video tapes are almost all phased out in favor of DVDs. Considering this trend, they will chose to use CD-ROMs to copy and share their digital videos. The technology that makes this process possible is referred to as MPEG-1. Granted, there are still quite a few limitations that this technology imposes, but it is only a matter of time before these will be ironed out and it, too, will become the standard state of the art technology - until something else comes along.

Some folks think that this "something else" has already come along with the arrival of MPEG-2 yet the limitations are still too great for the general public to really consider this option at this point. Recordable DVDs and their players are still a fairly steep expense, yet once again it is only a matter of time until the technology will advance and this, too, becomes a gold standard of the industry.