Could you make a video with binary?

Question

Say you knew binary, and you had a hex editor. Could you write out millions of characters and make a video file?

Answer 1

All data in a computer can be reduced down to a bunch of numbers, these being bytes. Bytes are a single unit that can hold a value anywhere between 0 and 255 (or -128 and 127 depending on the context). Those hexadecimal numbers you see in a hex editor are just the bytes that make it up. Yes, you could technically type all those out yourself, but you'd have to be insane.



I have a 14 second video file on my desktop right now. It's 4.4 megabytes big. Average typing speed is 40 words per minute, and the average length of a word is 5.1 letters, so we can convert this to 204 letters per minute. In hexadecimal, it requires two characters to represent a byte. So our typing speed would be 102 bytes per minute.



Typing at 102 bytes per minute for a 4.4 megabyte file, it'd take us roughly a MONTH to type out this 14 second video.



You see why it's crazy, ma dude?

Answer 2

It would be possible for someone who knows the mpeg format to manually code a simple video in a couple hours. They would make extensive use of block copy and cut-and-paste features of their hex editor. The video would be simple, like maybe a screen that is all cyan, that changes to red after 25 frames, then to white. Because of the way the compression works, they would only have to specify one small block of color, then replicate it over the whole screen. Then in the next frame, there is a simple way to say "no change from previous frame".



To make a video that looks like it was actually taken from real life would be unthinkable, but never say never as to what an artist can do.

Answer 3

POSSIBLE but not FEASIBLE.



This falls along the lines of the millions of monkeys randomly typing on typewriters, and one of them produces a Shakespeare play.

Answer 4

binary and hex are two different types of data.

binary is machine code. hexadecimal is 16-bit code.

it would take a TON of ones and zeroes just to make a 5 second video, but it is POSSIBLE, just not FEASIBLE...

each 1 or 0 is a bit. it takes 8 bits to make a single byte.

depending on what format of video you wanted to "write", even a low quality DivX AVI file would be hundreds of thousands of strings of 1's & 0's.

human mental capacity does not allow for comprehension of that much data over such a length of space.

this is why it is so hard to "fake" video footage of people.

Answer 5

Yes, if you really wanted to.

Just don't expect it to be easy or quick.



Even a single frame of 640×480 pixels in 16 shades of grey would need 1.2 million bits of data; feel like typing in 29.5 million bits per second of video? Unless you're planning to implement compression in your head as you enter the data?



Of course, the real question is why you'd use a hex editor to enter binary data; surely a binary editor would be more suitable?

Answer 6

How many pixels do you need?

Answer 7

You could, but it would take more time than you have available in your life.