Advances in digital video for electronic media

From media's early days of film strips and records, to today's multimedia CD-ROMs, nurses have embraced educational tools. Today, the capabilities of these tools have placed a tremendous demand for providing information any time, any where. This has led to increasing digitization of sights and sounds. Once digitized, this information can travel over information highways made up of telephone lines, fiberoptic cables, microwaves and satellites, or it can be stored on magnetic and optical media. Technological advances have made it possible for computer users to create, store and retrieve high quality digital still and moving video and audio for inclusion in electronic media. Methods for digitizing include capturing and converting the information with cameras, scanners and capture boards. Digital video compression/decompression (codec) standards vary in quality. Potential uses of digital video abound including video on demand, videoconferencing, distance learning, telemedicine, on-line education and computer-based training. Examples illustrating the differences in digital video formats will be shown during the presentation.