In this blog I have summarized all the basic stuff one should be knowing before editing their first video. To understand the concept of video we first need to understand what is an image:

Image



In digital imaging, a pixel, or picture element is a physical point in a raster image or the smallest controllable element of a picture represented on the screen. An image is a collection of such small pixels put together. This can be visualized in the image above where the heart is made up of multiple red pixels. The rest of the image is further made by combining different colored pixels like yellow, black, and green.

Video

Video in simple terms refers to playback and display of moving visual media or moving still images. This will be explained further below along with examples.


Some basic terms in a video:

1) Number of frames per second(FPS)

Frame rate or Frames per second refers to the number of still pictures per unit of time of the video. It ranges from six or eight frames per second (frame/s) for old mechanical cameras to 120 or more frames per second for new professional cameras. Greater the FPS, more the number of frames per second and hence better the video quality.



As told earlier, it will be quite clear from the image above that video is nothing but a collection of moving still images. Here, the first image above has lower FPS and the second image has greater FPS. The quality of the video will be better in the latter scenario as we have more frames(in this case phases of man’s posture while throwing) for a given time interval. Hence, it will be more detailed, and better as compared to the above one. We usually export a video with 25 FPS which is quite a decent number.


2) Aspect ratio



Aspect ratio describes the proportional relationship between the width and height of video screens and video picture elements. All popular video formats are rectangular, and so can be described by a ratio between width and height.
The ratio width to height for a traditional television screen is 4:3, or about 1.33:1. High definition televisions use an aspect ratio of 16:9, or about 1.78:1. We usually choose a rectangular aspect ratio 16:9 / 4:3 (Width > Height i.e. Landscape) for posting videos on Facebook, Youtube, IGTV, or 9:16 / 3:4 (Height > Width i.e. Portrait) for posting videos on Youtube shorts, Instagram Reels, etc.


3) Display Resolution



The display resolution or display modes of digital television, computer monitor, or any display device like mobile phones is the number of distinct pixels that can be displayed in each dimension. It is usually quoted as width × height, with the units in pixels: for example, 1024 × 768 means the width is 1024 pixels and the height is 768 pixels. Greater the number of pixels, the better the quality of your display resolution. Eg: 1080p Full HD, 4K Ultra HD, 8K Ultra HD, etc


Video editing

Video editing is the art of importing, cutting, updating, and merging videos, images, text, and audio together along with some pretty transitions. I personally recommend you to learn the tougher Adobe Premiere Pro as you can easily & quickly learn other video editing tools like iMovie, clips, KineMaster, Filmora, etc. post that.

How should you pace your learning?

1) Start by adding raw video, images, audio, and text to the video editor.
2) Then try cutting, and merging videos using the cut tool.
3) Adding basic video transitions like Fade. There are shortcuts to achieve this in almost every tool.
4) Adjusting audio(Loudness) and keeping the video and audio sound in sync so that they sound good together.

5) Exporting video in a suitable format like H.264, MPEG, mp4, etc. that can be posted on video platforms like Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Vimeo, etc.

I will try to make a video tutorial as well on the above content as it is better to see, visualize and learn than just reading the above content. The link will be shared here.