Video format: the differences
Have you ever wondered why there are so many video formats? Couldn’t we all lovingly agree on one? But above all, how frustrating is it to download a video that is available in the only format that is not compatible with the only device that we currently have?
For example: I recently downloaded a video course with the .MOV extension to be able to watch it comfortably on my very powerful and intelligent Smart TV. However, since the video format was not compatible with the latter, I had to approach it with a slight disappointment on the sad screen of the desktop computer.
Video formats: difference between container and codec
Multimedia files consist of two parts: the container format and the codec. The difference between these two elements is one of the biggest problems for users, but once you’ve guessed the “trick” you can easily understand why some formats are preferable to others.
A container format is a file format that can contain various types of data that are compressed by audio / video codecs. When we focus on expanding a video file, we’re actually looking at the container type. The container type determines which data types can be contained in the file and how this data can be organized in the file itself.
For example, a container format can accommodate a video track, an audio track, and a subtitle track (you’re already talking about a very advanced format, but it’s only used to get an idea). The problem is that the container format doesn’t necessarily describe how the data is encoded.
A raw video recording requires a lot of space. For example, a one-minute recording can take up to several gigabytes depending on the resolution and frame rate.
For this reason, video tracks must be compressed into appropriately sized files before they can be burned to discs or loaded onto the network for viewing or downloading. Of course there are several compression methods, each with advantages and disadvantages.
When it comes to video codecs, we’re talking about these different compression methods. It is important that the container format supports several codecs.
Because of this, you may experience problems viewing a video. For example, even if a device can read the video format from the MP4 container, it may not know how to decode the video track in the same file that could be encoded with Xvid, x264, or x265. Or you cannot read the audio track that can be encoded using any audio compression method.
The most common container formats
Only a handful of these are used daily among the numerous container sizes that have been introduced. When downloading videos from the Internet, there is a 99% chance that this video will be in one of the following three formats:
-AVI (Interlaced Audio Video) – First introduced by Microsoft in 1992. Videos in AVI format were among the most popular in the 1990s and early 2000s. They can only contain video and audio tracks and can actually contain multiple tracks from each, but this feature is rarely used. The readability of the .AVI format is almost universal, but has some compression restrictions that lead to files that are larger than average.
-MKV (Matroska Video Container): The project, which was first introduced in 2002, aimed to create a modern, flexible, expandable and cross-platform multimedia container format that enables streaming via the Internet. MKV can record practically all types of video (except MPEG-1) and audio codecs (except ATRAC) as well as multiple subtitle tracks, DVD menus and chapters, making it the currently most flexible format available. Although its popularity is increasing dramatically, it is still not widely supported.
-MP4 (MPEG-4 Version 2): The MP4 format, which was first introduced in 2002 and revised in 2003, was based on the popular QuickTime format and significantly improved it. It supports a variety of video and audio codecs, but is most commonly used with H.263 / H.264 for video and AAC for audio. Subtitle tracks are also supported.
