DV Video Format

What is DV video format? Digital Video (DV video format) is a digital video format created by Sony, JVC, Panasonic and other video camera producers, and launched in 1995. Its smaller tape form factor MiniDV has since become a standard for home and semi-professional video production; it is sometimes used for professional purposes as well, such as filmmaking and electronic news gathering (ENG). The DV video format specification (originally known as the Blue Book, current official name IEC 61834) defines both the codec and the tape format. Features include intraframe compression for uncomplicated editing and good video quality, especially compared to earlier consumer analog formats such as Video8, Hi8 and VHS-C. DV now enables filmmakers to produce movies inexpensively, and is strongly associated with independent film and citizen journalism.

The high quality of DV video format images, especially when compared to Video8 and Hi8 which were vulnerable to an unacceptable amount of video dropouts and hits, prompted the acceptance by mainstream broadcasters of material shot on DV. The low costs of DV equipment and their ease of use put such cameras in the hands of a new breed of videojournalists. Programs such as TLC's Trauma: Life in the E.R. and ABC News's Hopkins: 24/7 were shot on DV. CNN's Anderson Cooper is perhaps the best known of the generation of reporter/videographers who began their professional careers shooting their own stories.

There have been some variants on the DV video format standard, most notably Sony's DVCAM and Panasonic's DVCPRO formats targeted at professional use. Sony's consumer Digital8 format is another variant, which is similar to DV but recorded on Hi8 tape. Other formats such as DVCPRO50 utilize DV25 encoders running in parallel.

MiniDV tapes can also be used to record a high-definition format called HDV in cameras designed for this codec, which differs significantly from DV on a technical level as it uses MPEG-2 compression. MPEG-2 is more efficient than the compression used in DV, in large part due to inter-frame/temporal compression. This allows for higher resolution at bitrates similar to DV. On the other hand, the use of inter-frame compression can cause motion artifacts and complications in editing. Nonetheless, HDV is being widely adopted for both consumer and professional purposes and is supported by many editing applications using either the native HDV format or intermediary editing codecs.