Scientific video can be packaged in various ways: familiar video formats like .AVI and .MOV, folders full of numbered images, or "stacks" of TIFF images. Each of these requires a separate Python module. And, once loaded, they have different methods for accessing individual images, looping through the images in bulk, accessing a specific range, or dealing with multidimensional files. PIMS can do all of these using a consistent interface, handling the differences between different inputs invisibly.