Video glossary: formats, metrics, editing and ads

Metrics, formats and files

The measurement pages define what ad platforms and analytics report: hook rate, hold rate, thumb stop ratio, ThruPlay, a counted video view, CPM against CPV, completion rate, average watch time and the retention curve. Each says where the number is found and what it can and cannot tell you. The technical pages cover what a file is made of: frame rate, bitrate, codecs, MP4 against MOV against WebM, 1080p against 4K, loudness in LUFS, and the 9 by 16, 4 by 5 and 1 by 1 aspect ratios. Read the safe area page with the aspect ratio page, because a caption that fits the frame can still sit under a platform's buttons.

Sound, words and pictures

The audio and caption pages cover voiceover against narration, text to speech, AI voice clones, audio ducking, burned in against closed captions, subtitles against captions and SRT files. The editing pages cover how a video is put together: storyboards, shot lists, scenes, transitions, pacing, jump cuts, B roll, stock footage, lower thirds, title cards, end screens, kinetic typography, motion graphics against animation, the Ken Burns effect and a push in. The thumbnail, watermark and call to action pages cover the frames around the story that decide whether anyone presses play.

Kinds of video, and choosing one

The format pages name videos by purpose: explainer, product demo, tutorial, screencast, testimonial, teaser, talking head, avatar video, slideshow, loop, VSL, bumper ad and pre roll ad. If the job is teaching, compare the tutorial, screencast and explainer pages. If the job is selling on a paid placement, compare bumper, pre roll and VSL, since their lengths and skip rules differ. If nobody wants to appear on camera, the avatar, slideshow and kinetic typography pages describe the options.

Every page in this collection

• 1080p vs 4K video: does the export size matter?

  Choosing 4K by default feels like the safe option, and often it only buys longer exports and heavier uploads. The better question is where the video will be watched and how small its finest detail is.

• 9:16 vs 4:5 vs 1:1 video: which ratio for which feed?

  The ratio decides how much of a phone screen your video owns before anyone chooses to watch it. Picking a shape per placement, rather than one shape per campaign, is often worth more than any edit to the video itself.

• Average view duration vs watch time

  The two numbers sit side by side in analytics and are easy to swap by mistake. One describes how well each view held, the other how much attention the video gathered in total.

• Burned in captions vs closed captions: what is the difference?

  The choice decides who controls the words on screen: the person who made the video or the person watching it. It also decides how much work a typo, a translation or a new platform will cost later.

• CPM vs CPV vs CPC: which video ad price should you buy?

  A video campaign can look cheap on one of these numbers and expensive on another, with nothing changed except the column you read. Knowing what each price counts, and what a view means on each platform, is what stops a team from buying the wrong thing very efficiently.

• Motion graphics vs animation: what is the difference?

  The words get used interchangeably in briefs, and the confusion is expensive when someone asks for animation and means a moving infographic, or asks for motion graphics and expects a mascot. Knowing which one a video needs decides the budget, the timeline and who should make it.

• MP4 vs MOV vs WebM: which video file should you use?

  The extension on a file decides where it will open before anyone sees the picture. Choosing the right container for each stage, capture, editing and delivery, avoids the most common reason a finished video refuses to play.

• Subtitles vs captions: what is the difference?

  The three look identical on screen, a line or two of text near the bottom of the frame, so they get labelled interchangeably. They are written for different viewers, and a file made for one audience quietly fails the other.

• Voiceover vs narration: is there a difference?

  People use the two words as if they were one, and most of the time nothing goes wrong. The gap shows up in scripts, contracts and accessibility requirements, where asking for the wrong one gets you a different deliverable.

• What counts as a video view?

  Two videos with the same view count on two platforms can have been watched for wildly different lengths of time. Reading a view count without its definition is how teams end up celebrating a number that mostly measured scrolling.

• What is a bumper ad?

  Six seconds sounds like too little time to say anything, which is exactly why the format rewards discipline. It is built for reach and recall, making a brand or offer familiar through frequency rather than persuading anyone in one viewing.

• What is a CTA in a video?

  A video can hold attention perfectly and still achieve nothing if it never says what should happen next. The call to action turns watching into a result, and its wording and placement matter more than how it looks.

• What is a jump cut?

  Jump cuts are the signature edit of talking head video, and they read as either lively or careless depending on how they are handled. Knowing why the join shows makes it easy to decide when to embrace it and when to hide it.

• What is a looping video?

  Loops show up everywhere attention is brief: website hero sections, product pages, digital signage and feeds that replay clips automatically. Understanding that the loop lives in the player, not the video, saves a lot of confusion when a clip plays once in one place and forever in another.

• What is a lower third?

  Viewers rarely remember a name they only heard once. A lower third turns that name into something they can read at the moment it matters, without stopping the video to do it.

• What is a pre-roll ad?

  The position of an ad in the stream changes who sees it and what state they are in. A viewer waiting for a video is impatient, a viewer interrupted halfway through is invested, and a viewer at the end is either finished or looking for the next thing.

• What is a product demo video?

  Demo, explainer and tutorial get used as if they were the same thing, and the confusion produces videos that try to persuade, explain and instruct all at once. Each serves a different viewer at a different moment, and that decides its length and its shape.

• What is a push in camera move?

  A slow push in is one of the quietest ways to tell a viewer that a moment matters. It is also widely imitated with digital zooms, and knowing the difference explains why some versions feel cinematic and others feel flat.

• What is a scene in video editing?

  Talking about a video in shots is too fine, and talking about it as a whole is too coarse. Scenes are the level where structure decisions actually get made: what comes first, what gets cut and how long each idea holds.

• What is a screencast?

  Screencasts are the default format for software help, onboarding and bug reports because they show exactly what the viewer will see. They are also slow to make well, since a live recording captures every hesitation, wrong click and loading spinner along with the steps that matter.

• What is a shot list?

  On a shoot day, the thing that goes wrong most often is not the lighting or the sound but a shot nobody remembered to get. A shot list is the checklist that stops the edit discovering that gap a week later.

• What is a slideshow video?

  Most businesses and families have far more good photos than good video, and a slideshow is the cheapest way to put those photos where video performs. The difference between one that holds attention and one that drags is almost entirely in the choice, order and timing of the images.

• What is a storyboard?

  A script tells a team what a video will say but not what it will look like, and that gap is where most expensive changes come from. A storyboard closes it while a change still costs a sketch rather than a reshoot.

• What is a talking head video?

  It is the cheapest video anyone can make and one of the easiest to get wrong. Done well, a face builds trust no graphic can; done badly, it is a minute of someone reading that viewers abandon within seconds.

• What is a teaser video?

  A launch that arrives unannounced has to create attention and convert it on the same day, which rarely works. A teaser spreads that load across the weeks before, so people are already waiting when the full reveal goes out.

• What is a testimonial video?

  Buyers discount what a business says about itself and give far more weight to someone like them who has already paid. That trust is also why regulators in Australia, the UK and the US treat a testimonial as an advertising claim the business has to stand behind.

• What is a title card?

  Most of a video is spent showing things, and a title card is the moment it stops to say something plainly. Used well it orients the viewer in a second, and used badly it is the part everybody skips.

• What is a tutorial video?

  People look for tutorials in the middle of a job, often with the software open in another window and patience running out. A good one respects that by being findable, specific and short enough to follow without scrubbing back and forth.

• What is a video codec?

  People say MP4 when they mean H.264, and that confusion produces files that open on one device and fail on another. Knowing which part is the codec and which is the container makes those failures quick to diagnose.

• What is a video thumbnail?

  People pick what to watch from a grid of small pictures and short titles, often in well under a second. The thumbnail is the part of that choice a creator controls completely, and also the part platforms police for honesty.

• What is a video transition?

  Every edit is a transition, even the ones nobody notices, and the choice tells the viewer how two moments relate. Pick the wrong one and a video either feels jumpy or drags between ideas it should connect quickly.

• What is a video watermark?

  A watermark is cheap to add and awkward to remove, which is exactly why it gets overused. The same mark that protects a video in one place can quietly limit how far it travels in another.

• What is a VSL (video sales letter)?

  The format grew out of direct response copywriting, where long letters sold products one page at a time. Its reputation is mixed because it is so often paired with inflated promises, which is exactly why the claims inside one need more care than the video craft.

• What is a YouTube end screen?

  The moment a video ends is the moment a viewer is most likely to leave. An end screen gives them somewhere specific to go next, but only if the video was edited with room for it.

• What is AI voice cloning?

  A cloned voice can dub a founder's video into five languages, and the same technique can fake a phone call from a relative asking for money. The technology is identical in both cases, so the rules focus on consent and on what the voice is used to say.

• What is an AI avatar video?

  Avatars remove the camera, the presenter and the reshoot from making a talking video, which is exactly why teams reach for them. They also put a person on screen who does not exist, and that changes what the video is allowed to claim.

• What is an audience retention graph?

  An average view duration gives one number for a whole video and hides whether people left at second three or slowly drifted away. The curve shows exactly which scene lost them, which is the only information an editor can act on.

• What is an explainer video?

  Most people meet a product through a page they skim in seconds, and an explainer exists to do the job that page cannot. When the thing on offer is a process, a pricing model or a service with no obvious picture, a short explainer is often the only way the idea lands at all.

• What is an SRT file?

  Most caption uploads, from video platforms to ad managers, come down to one small text file sitting beside the video. Getting its few rules right is the difference between captions that appear on cue and an upload that is rejected or drifts out of sync.

• What is audio ducking?

  Music that sits at one level for a whole video is either too quiet in the gaps or too loud under the words. Ducking is the reason a voice stays clear without the music disappearing from the rest of the film.

• What is B-roll?

  A video that is nothing but one person talking, or one continuous shot, asks a lot of the viewer. B-roll is how editors give the eye something new every few seconds without changing what is being said.

• What is frame rate?

  Frame rate changes how motion feels more than most people expect, and changing it late causes more trouble than almost any other setting. Choosing it once, at the start, and keeping it constant is most of the skill.

• What is hold rate?

  Stopping the scroll is only half of a video ad's job. Hold rate tells you whether the people who stopped stayed long enough to hear the offer.

• What is hook rate?

  Most feed video is passed over before anything after the opening gets a chance. Hook rate isolates that first moment so a weak start is not blamed on the offer, the edit or the audience.

• What is kinetic typography?

  Plenty of people meet a video in a feed with the sound off, and when words are all they can take in, how those words arrive matters. Kinetic typography turns a script into something to watch rather than something to read off a slide.

• What is LUFS?

  Two videos can peak at exactly the same level and still sound very different in volume, which is why peak meters stopped being the rule for broadcast. Knowing the loudness of a finished file is what keeps a voice clear and stops a video blasting the viewer after the quiet one before it.

• What is pacing in video editing?

  Pacing decides whether somebody keeps watching long before the content is judged on its merits. It is also the part of an edit that goes wrong in both directions, with promos that rush past their own offer and tutorials that crawl.

• What is stock footage?

  A clip that looks right can still be the wrong clip to use, because the licence decides what is allowed, not the picture. Knowing the licence types is what keeps a cheap shortcut from becoming an expensive takedown.

• What is text to speech (TTS)?

  A synthetic voice used to be the giveaway that nobody had budget for a real one. That changed quickly, and the question now is less whether a machine voice sounds acceptable and more how to write and direct it so it sounds right for the job.

• What is the Ken Burns effect?

  A photo held perfectly still for several seconds feels like a pause, while the same photo drifting gently feels like part of the story. The effect is simple to apply, and the gap between graceful and queasy lies almost entirely in the settings.

• What is the title safe area in video?

  Safe areas began as a fix for old televisions that hid the edges of the picture, and the habit outlived the problem. On today's screens the edges are covered by something else, so the idea still matters even where the old numbers no longer do.

• What is ThruPlay?

  A three second play tells you the opening stopped a thumb; a ThruPlay tells you someone stayed for the message. The gap between those two numbers is where most video ads quietly lose their audience.

• What is thumb-stop ratio?

  Advertising teams have coined several names for one simple division, and reports that mix them confuse everyone who reads them. Knowing the aliases lets you confirm that two numbers are really the same number before comparing them.

• What is video bitrate?

  Two files at the same resolution can look completely different because one was given three times as much data. Bitrate decides whether gradients stay smooth or break into bands, and many poor looking uploads trace back to it.

• What is video completion rate?

  Completion rate is the metric that most directly punishes a video for running longer than its message. It is also easy to misread, because each platform counts a finished view in its own way.