From a digital video perspective, bandwidth is often referred to as the minimum number of bits per second required during playback such that no video or audio is lost. In general, the higher the bandwidth of a digital video file, the higher the perceived quality of the video when it is played back. However, people who create digital video files must often sacrifice video quality by compressing the video in order to achieve a bandwidth low enough that it can be supported by the delivery device, such as a CD-ROM drive. When video is converted into a digital format, it consumes large amounts of space - too large for most storage and delivery devices. Decoder Digital video decoders convert digital video data back into moving video and audio on the computer screen.
Decoders can be hardware or software-based.
Software decoders can be differentiated by their scalability, or in other words their ability to provide an optimized playback quality based on the performance capabilities of the host computer. Indeo from Intel is one of the better scaleable decoders. Software-only MPEG decoders currently do not provide a great deal of scalability. As prices for MPEG decoder chips fall, one can expect to find them more frequently as standard elements of computers, as they are now in IBM's Aptiva line of computers. Delta Frames Visual information that has changed between two points in time in video.