Video Footage, Stock Footage & Video Clips

Video Footage

Footage is the raw material editor works on. It’s a very general term. It may refer to the images on developed film, on videotape or the media data in your hard drive. It may also refer to video or audio. When you manipulate any material, you are working on footages.

Stock Footage

Stock video footage, or archive footage, library pictures and file footage are film or video footage that is not custom shot for use in a specific film or television program. Stock footage is of beneficial use to filmmakers as it is far cheaper than shooting new material.

Typical examples of stock footage are moving images of cities and landmarks, dangerous wildlife in their natural environments and historical footage.

Stock footage is often used in commercials when there is not enough money or time for production.

Suppliers of stock footage fall into two categories: rights-managed and royalty-free.

Video Clips

In general, video clip refers to any footage you work on.

For desktop video editing, a clip is actually a pointer to the source media file stored on hard disk, which is too big in size to be easily manipulated. The clip behaves as if it were the source file.

In other words, you manipulate the clips in timeline, the software will play back the real source footages according to these pointers.

For end users, clip and footage have not much difference.

Video Footage, Stock Footage & Video Clips - Video Editing Glossary & Terms

Video Footage, Stock Footage & Video Clips