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Videos usually are described by a set of parameters including: bit rate, frame rate, width & height.

But I came to realize that there are more parameters including B-frames and I frames (or I guess they are the KEY-FRAMES).

Now I noticed that they exist when I was working on a custom video capturing technique in which I have the ability to control how often they appear in terms of seconds, so they are either 1 sec away from each other or 2 sec away or 3.....

But some weird things happened when I tried to change the appearance of these frames.

First case:

When I encoded a video with (2 sec or 1 between I Frames) I got a video that doesn't seek well.

Now If I try to merge the encoded video with an equal length audio file for some reason when I seek forward or backward I see black screen before I seek to the requested frame.

Second case:

When I encoded a video with (0 sec between I frames) I got a video that seeks fine, but for some reason the size increased.

Now if I try to merge the encoded video with audio of equal length I get a video mixed with audio that works well and seeks well with no black screen on seeking.

Question:

What are I frames?

Why do they affect seek behavior?

Why do they affect the merging of video with audio?

Why do they affect the size of the video?

Thanks.

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You should do some research about GOPs ( Group of Pictures ) to find the definition of I frames.

This will answer the second and fourth question as well.

In generall, the more I frames a GOP has:

  • the better is the seeking qualitiy. (If the seek lands to a non I frame, it takes ressources to calculate the frame. To avoid this, sometimes seeking is only possible from one I frame to another)

  • the bigger is the video ( as I frames are saved as full frames )

The GOP has usually no effect on sound, but the codec does.

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  • why is it that when I merge an audio file with a video file that was encoded with 1 sec between i -intervals I get black frames when I fast seek? But It doesn't happen when i-frames are set to 0.
    – database
    Commented May 17, 2018 at 12:08
  • If you video only contains I-frames, there's less decoding necessary and therefore frames can be shown. For non I frames the decoding is much mor time-consuming and abviously not fast enough to show the frames during seeking.
    – user21266
    Commented May 17, 2018 at 12:31
  • Then what can I do to fix that?
    – database
    Commented May 17, 2018 at 12:37
  • Use I frames only, or use at least only B frames in addition and no P frames, or use another codec.
    – user21266
    Commented May 17, 2018 at 12:41
  • Yes I am doing this but the file is getting too large? In your opinion what do you suggest( frame rate, bitrate, length, width ) should I use with a (0 sec i - interval video) to get a video of almost length 2:00 minutes and doesn't exceed 8-7 mb?
    – database
    Commented May 17, 2018 at 12:44

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