Introduction to Pro Tools : Pro Tools Concepts : AAF, MXF, and OMF : Media Data (Media Files)

Media Data (Media Files)
Media data represents raw audio or video material and is stored in individual media files. Every time you record a piece of video or audio material into an application, you are creating a media file. Audio media files hold samples (such as 44,100 or 48,000 samples per second of recording) while video media files use frames (24, 25, or 30 frames per second of recording).
The size of each media file depends on how much audio or video material it contains. For example, a file containing ten minutes of high resolution video might be approximately 2.16 GB in size, whereas a ten-minute audio recording at the might result in a 100 MB file. Media files tend to be large, since high quality audio and video signals are data intensive. Video data generally requires considerably more storage than audio data.