hello

i have been given a project on "effect of latency in video streaming". the objective of the project is to introduce latency in video files. i was asked to go through the different video file formats but im not able to recognize the difference between them.since i do not have any idea about how to continue, it would be very helpful if any of you could guide me further.
also i would want to know if videos can be coded in high level languages like C/C++.