How Videos, Pixels, and Digital Color Work




Imagine a video like a flipbook – it’s really just a bunch of still images (frames) shown quickly one after another.  For example, a 24fps video shows 24 different images in each second.  When these frames flash by fast enough, your brain blends them together and you see smooth motion instead of separate pictures.  Each frame is just a normal image.

Each image frame is made up of tiny dots called pixels.  Think of a pixel as a little square on the screen.  All computer images are made of millions of these squares tightly packed together.  Each pixel holds one color, so when you zoom in you see a mosaic of colored squares that blend into a picture when you step back.

A pixel’s color is usually defined using the RGB model.  In RGB, you mix red, green, and blue light to get any color you want.  In practice, each of R, G, B is given an integer value (often 0 to 255).  For example, (255,0,0) is bright red, (0,255,0) is green, and (0,0,255) is blue; (0,0,0) is black (no light) and (255,255,255) is white.  By picking values for red, green, and blue, each pixel can display any of millions of colors.

The range of those values depends on bit depth.  “8-bit color” means each channel (R, G, B) is 8 bits, so it can range from 0–255 (2^8 values).  That gives 256×256×256 ≈ 16.7 million possible colors in total.  A “10-bit” channel goes from 0–1023 (2^10 values), letting in roughly 1 billion colors.  A “12-bit” channel is 0–4095 (2^12 values)

for over 68 billion colors.  More bits per pixel mean smoother color gradients and finer shades, but also more data to store.


Representing a 2-Second Black-and-White Video in Binary

Assumptions about the Video

Assumptions about the Video

  •        Duration: 2 seconds.
  •        Frame rate: 2 frames per second (2 fps)​ That means two still images (frames) are shown each        second.
  •        Total frames: 4 frames (because 2 seconds × 2 fps = 4 frames).
  •        Frame: Each frame is one still image in the video​. Think of it like a page in a flipbook.
  •        Pixels per frame: 2 pixels (for simplicity, imagine a 1×2 pixel image).
  •        Color format: Black-and-white only (each pixel is either black or white, no gray shades).

 

Pixel Values and Binary Codes


·      Brightness values: In a grayscale image, black is represented by the number 0 and white by 255​. (Smaller numbers mean darker; larger mean lighter​.)

·       8-bit encoding: Each pixel uses 8 bits (1 byte) to store its value​. This gives 256 possible values (0 through 255).

·       Binary representation: In 8 bits, 0 is 00000000 and 255 is 11111111​.

·       Example: So a black pixel is stored as 00000000, and a white pixel as 11111111. These will be used below in our tables.


Frame-by-Frame Pixel Data

Below is a table of all 4 frames. Each column shows the binary values for Pixel 1 and Pixel 2 in that frame. Here “00000000” means black and “11111111” means white (per the rules above):


Time

Frame

Pixel 1

Pixel 2

1st  Second

1

00000000

11111111

2

11111111

00000000

2nd Second

3

11111111

11111111

4

00000000

00000000







  •       In this example, Frame 1 has Pixel 1 = black (00000000) and Pixel 2 = white (11111111).
  •        Frame 2 has Pixel 1 = white (11111111), Pixel 2 = black (00000000).
  •        Frame 3 has both pixels white (11111111 each).
  •        Frame 4 has both pixels black (00000000 each).
  •        Each frame’s data is a pair of 8-bit binary numbers (one for each pixel).



Transmitting the Video as a Binary Stream

When the video is sent or stored, all frame data is put together into one long binary stream, frame by frame:

  •        Frame order: The bits for Frame 1 go first, then Frame 2, then Frame 3, and Frame 4, in order.
  •        Concatenation: We simply concatenate each pixel’s bits in that order.
  •        Combined data: For our example, the binary stream would be (spaces added every 8 bits for clarity)

 

Frame 1: 00000000 11111111 

Frame 2: 11111111 00000000 

Frame 3: 11111111 11111111 

Frame 4: 00000000 00000000 

 

Combined stream: 0000000011111111 1111111100000000 1111111111111111 0000000000000000

 

In one line: 0000000011111111 1111111100000000 1111111111111111 0000000000000000. This is the raw binary bit sequence for the whole 2-second video (with our chosen pixel values).

 

Why This Matters

This example shows the basic idea behind all digital video. In real life, a video is just a fast sequence of frames (still images)​. Each frame is made of pixels, and each pixel’s brightness is stored as binary numbers. When you watch a video on your phone, computer, or TV, the device is actually receiving (or reading) these bits and reconstructing the images. Real videos have many more frames per second and many more pixels, and they often compress the data, but the core process is the same. Understanding this helps you see that every digital video – from a short clip to a full movie – is ultimately just streams of 0s and 1s representing pictures. Computers and networks move these bits around so that the right image appears at the right time on screen.


How This Simple Video Becomes a Stream of 0s and 1s

 

Video Settings

We have a tiny 2-second video that we want to turn into a stream of binary data. To understand this step by step, let's first break down the video’s settings and its pixels:

  •        Video Duration: 2 second total.
  •        Frame Rate (fps): 2 frames per second.
  •        Total Frames: 4 (because 2 seconds × 2 fps).
  •        Frame Size: Each frame is a 2×2 grid of pixels, so there are 4 pixels per frame.
  •        Color Depth: We are using 8-bit values for color. That means each pixel’s color is described by 8 binary digits (0s and 1s).

 

Colors and Encoding

Each pixel can be one of five colors: black, red, green, blue, or white. We map each of these colors to an 8-bit binary value. Here’s what each color means in binary:

  •        Black: 00000000 (all color bits are 0, meaning no light).
  •        Red: 11100000 (the red bits are on (111) and green/blue bits are off (00000)).
  •        Green: 00011100 (the green bits are on (111) and red/blue bits are off).
  •        Blue: 00000011 (the blue bits are on (11) and red/green bits are off).
  •        White: 11111111 (all bits are 1, so full red, green, and blue). 

Frame-by-Frame Data

Now we list each frame’s pixels (each frame is 2×2). The table below shows Frame 1 through Frame 4, with each pixel’s color and the 8-bit code:

Time

Frame

Pixel

Color

Binary (8-bit)

1st second

1

 

1

Black

00000000

2

Red

11100000

3

Green

00011100

4

Blue

00000011

2

 

1

White

11111111

2

Red

11100000

3

Green

00011100

4

Black

00000000

2nd second

3

 

1

Blue

00000011

2

White

11111111

3

Red

11100000

4

Green

00001100

4

 

1

Black

00000000

2

Black

00000000

3

White

11111111

4

White

11111111



We have now encoded every pixel in every frame, as shown in the table above.







Building the Binary Stream

 

Next, we form the full video stream by writing down each pixel’s bits in order. We go frame by frame, and within each frame we list pixels 1 through 4:

  •        Frame 1 bits: 00000000 11100000 00011100 00000011
  •        Frame 2 bits: 11111111 11100000 00011100 00000000
  •        Frame 3 bits: 00000011 11111111 11100000 00001100
  •        Frame 4 bits: 00000000 00000000 11111111 11111111

 

Each line above shows the bits for pixels 1, 2, 3, and 4 of that frame(in order). When we send this video data, we put all those bits together in one long stream, in frame order. The final combined binary stream is:

0000000011100000000111000000001111111111111000000001110000000000000000111111111111100000000011000000000000000001111111111111111

 

This long string of 0s and 1s is all 16 pixels of the 4 frames, back-to-back. In practice, digital video is sent or stored as such sequences of bits. Our example is very small, but it shows the principle: each pixel’s color is turned into an 8-bit number, and those numbers are lined up in time order.

 

Why It Matters

Digital devices (like phones, cameras, and streaming services) use the same idea. Each frame of a real video is made of pixels, each stored as bits for colors. All of those bits become a data stream that can travel over wires or the internet. Understanding this basic process helps explain how videos are stored and sent on computers. Even though real videos use far more pixels and more bits per color, at the core they also work by converting images into a long series of 0s and 1s, just like our tiny example.