Normalize the volume of an mp3

For several decades, with the appearance of MP3, it has become a customary practice that people accumulate a large number of music files, mainly in MP3 format.
Some people get to accumulate thousands of songs in the MP3 format. which are easily transported with a pendrive using any other device, to be able to listen to them anywhere, and at any time.

 


This is very comfortable because one does not need to load any hard disk and much less large numbers of CDs or cassettes.
but it has the disadvantage here when mixing the songs that comes from very different recordings, times, etc. It occurs very frequently in volume level differences.
It is a typical problem today, want to Play favorite songs meets the fact that some sound much louder than others. And this eventually becomes a problem.

for this the volume normalizers have been created. The volume means all the songs have a volume as optimized as possible every possible level that each of them can play.
Volume normalizers have also existed for decades, and their algorithms to achieve amazing results. today download Mp4 Gain and check results no other software can offer. Russian other options How to change the pitch of a song Without altering its speed on the contrary modify the speed without affecting the Pitch. You can also equalize it and perform various functions that will be very useful.

All about the different Video formats: Xvid, Divx, mp4, h264, Flv

Currently we find countless video formats. Depending on the quality you are looking for, the video will be exported in one way or another. In this post I help you differentiate and understand each of the formats and codecs so that you can apply it in your editing projects.

video formats codecs

You can find various formats intended for both web pages and videos on YouTube or Vimeo, as well as to project in movie quality or to watch them on your mobile device or Tablet.

there were no different video formats we would be very limited when making any type of video production since they would occupy an infinity of megabytes, in addition all would have an extreme quality which would make it difficult to carry out projects for an exclusive job. By the way, if you are looking for websites to download royalty-free videos for your projects here I leave you the best free video pages in HD and 4K

It is not the same to export a video in quality for youtube or any online platform than to export them for a mobile device or a film shoot. Each has essential characteristics that make everything optimized to get the most out of your production.

Many times the problem with all these options and formats is compatibility. Each device records in a different format and we may have problems when playing them, so it is very interesting to know what options there are and how to handle them to avoid headaches.

First of all it is to differentiate between these important concepts:

Definition of container format and video codec

To clarify concepts it is important to define what is a container format with what is a video codec, totally different things. The container format is the file format, the drawer that encompasses all the material (video, audio, etc.) while the video codec is the format that is related to the part of the video and is not absolutely essential.

video formats informtion

Container format: Every video file has a format inside, which can be AVI, MPG, H264, MOV, WMV etc. It has several elements inside, including video and audio generally. But they could also contain integrated subtitles, including several audio files with different languages.

Video codecs: Video codecs are the files that are within the container format, therefore you have to know how to differentiate these two concepts. If there were no codecs there would be no problem since these are files that help compression. Depending on the codec’s choice, you may have worse or better quality.

 

 Types of video formats and codecs

AVI format

This format is one of the best known and most widely used as a container for storing series, movies and other similar videos. The .avi came to light in 1992 and was undoubtedly the quintessential video export file as it was fully compatible for Windows, Apple, Linux, Unix etc.

It is currently one of the most standard formats used with the S.O Windows. But not everything can be good, and if we talk about disadvantages we will say that the memory used to store the audio and video information is large. That is, the compression of an .avi file is quite heavy.

Another disadvantage would be the reproduction, being an old format has been updated with codecs making old players can no longer read these updated formats and vice versa.

MPG format

A video format with worldwide compatibility, whose audio and video compression with little loss of quality makes it easy to download these files to a web. The MPG file in turn is divided into MPG-1, MPG-2, MPG-3, and MPG-4, each of these with a different quality and I will explain below:

MPG-1: Quality compared to the VHS format of yesteryear already obsolete, resolution of 352 × 240

MPG-2: Equipped with a slightly higher quality and can be compared with that of analog television. Its resolution is 720 × 486. This format was responsible for the success of DVD Video

MPG-3: It was an attempt or proposal to give high resolution Television quality or what is the same, for HDTV, but it was discarded giving priority to MPG-2, then the MPG-3 will become the known audio file called MP3

MPG-4: Based on the Quicktime format and identical to the .MOV format, it improves the compression efficiency of the MPG-2 used by default on Apple machines. MPG-4 and MP4 is exactly the same, let’s say it’s the official extension for these records. If we talk about high definition, we certainly talk about MP4

WMV format

Microsoft Windows is the owner of this format. To play this video file we have the Windows Media Player, or its equivalent, the great VLC player. A curiosity of this format is that it offers support for digital rights management, preventing users from copying the information, an interesting feature for online digital audio and video vendors.

These files are compressed exclusively with Microsoft codecs. with resolutions higher than 300,000 pixels making it an ideal format for Blu-ray discs and HD DVDs.

Format .MOV

If you don’t have a Mac in your possession, you may have found this file on some occasions. But due to the difficult reproduction of it you have ruled out, now the thing has changed.

This standard developed by Apple allows the transmission and reproduction of high quality visual content on the Internet on both Apple and Windows operating systems. Quicktime comes with its integrated player and since version 7 it has become a player that recognizes most of the current video files.

h-264 H.264 format

One of today’s most current formats between video editing. Created in 2003, it has evolved, producing high video quality while maintaining its low bit rate, achieving a simple structure design and a flexible format for mass use. The H.264 is a codec that needs a container format to be able to store that video.

It is the ideal candidate to use as a YouTube format or any tool for internet transmission.

MKV format (Matroska)

The MKV format is a format used primarily for movies, series, and 3D content. This format is used because it allows you to store many data in the same file. For example, include audio tracks in several languages.

It plays mainly on computers, but also on other devices such as televisions that have a USB connection. It works very similarly to MP4 and usually uses the H.264 codec.

DIVX format

It is characterized by being the first video codec that was used in the first movies in DVD Video format to reduce the size and burn that content to a CD.

Divx is a compression format that allows you to give images of similar quality to the DVD but needing less storage capacity.To be able to view videos with divx you need to install decoders or codecs that almost always work with plugins or ejectuables that already contain these codecs

The DIVx format does not act on audio compression affecting only the video.

XVID format

When the Divx ceased to be so popular, it gave way to the XviD, surpassing it for its better quality, becoming more famous because it was supported by many DVD players.

At present, although there are other more powerful formats, this compression is still used since its performance and compression speed is very good.

FLV format

Surely it has happened to you that while you are on the internet, a pop-up window jumps into your browser telling you that you need to update the well-known Flash Player, formerly called Macromedia Flash Player. It is mainly used to stream video over the internet. FLVs can be seen by most S.O. and in all browsers, as I said before, with the preload of the update. Websites like YouTube use this format to play your videos.

 

Video File Formats – Everything you need to know about video formats

 

Digital videos can be saved in files of different formats. Each one corresponds to a specific extension of the file that contains it. There are many types of video formats. Here are some of the most used. Each type of file also supports a different compression codec at all times.

video formats

-AVI (Audio Video Interleaved = Audio and Video Interleaved)

It is the standard format for storing digital video.
When video is captured from a digital camera to the computer, it is usually stored in this format with the DV (Digital Video) codec.
The AVI file can contain video with excellent quality. However, the weight of the file is always very high.
Supports different compression codecs such as CinePak, Intel Indeo 5, DV, etc. The codecs with more compression capacity and acceptable quality are DivX and XviD.
The AVI format can be displayed with most players: Windows Media, QuickTime, etc. as long as the appropriate codecs for each type of player are installed on the computer.
It is ideal for saving original videos that have been captured from the digital camera (encoded with DV).
It is not advisable to publish them on the Internet in this format due to their enormous weight.
The CinePak, Intel Indeo, DV codecs, etc. They do not offer great compression. The DivX and XviD codecs, on the other hand, achieve optimal compression although they are usually used primarily for the coding of long-term films.

-MPEG (Moving Pictures Expert Group = Movie Expert Group)

It is a standard format for digital video compression.
They are * .MPG or * .MPEG extension files.
Supports different types of compression codecs: MPEG-1 (CD quality), MPEG-2 (DVD quality), MPEG-3 (MP3 audio oriented) and MPEG-4 (more web oriented).
They play with Windows Media Player and QuickTime.

-MOV

It is the video and audio format developed by Apple.
It uses its own codec that evolves in versions quite quickly.
These types of files can also have * .QT extension
It is recommended to use the QuickTime player. There is a free version of it that can be downloaded from the Internet.
It is ideal for posting videos on the Internet for its reasonable quality / weight.
Support streaming

-WMV

It has been recently developed by Microsoft.
It uses the MPEG-4 codec for video compression.
It can also have * .ASF extension
It can only be viewed with an updated version of Windows Media 7 or higher. This application is integrated into Windows.
It is ideal for posting videos on the Internet for reasonable quality / weight.
Support streaming

-RM

It is the proposal of Real Networks for video files.
Use your own codec to compress the audio.
This type of files has * .RM and * .RAM extension.
It is displayed with a specific player: Real Player. There is a free version of it that can be downloaded from the Internet.
It can be used to publish videos on the Internet for its acceptable quality / weight.
Support streaming

-FLV

It is a format used by the Adobe Flash player to view video on the Internet.
It uses the Sorenson Spark codec and the On2 VP6 codec. Both allow high visual quality with reduced bitrates.
They are * .FLV extension files.
They can be played from different local players: MPlayer, VLC media player, Riva, Xine, etc.
Recommended option for the web for its accessibility. When viewed through the Flash player, it is accessible from most operating systems and web browsers.
The best known video repositories on the Internet use this format for the dissemination of videos: YouTube, Google Video, iFilm, etc.
Allows you to configure different video parameters to achieve acceptable quality / weight.
Support streaming

WebM: everything you need to know about the Google format

 

What is the WebM?

WebM is a container format (with extension * .webm) for multimedia files, that is, for videos and audio files. In the same container the video codecs VP8 and VP9 are used, as well as the Vorbis and Opus audio codecs. At the Google I / 0 2010 conference, the company announced its plan for WebM to be an alternative to the existing MP4 format with its H.264 codec from the beginning. The consumer can use the latter at no cost when watching a video, but developers who want to work with the codec must pay the license fees. On the contrary, WebM is an open source project with which anyone can work without paying rights for it.

WebM is designed for use with HTML5. The VP8 and VP9 codecs are designed so that in those cases where considerable compression must be carried out, the extraction can still occur with little computing power. The objective of this design is to allow the reproduction of Internet videos on virtually any device (regardless of whether it is a desktop computer, a tablet, a smartphone or a multimedia device such as a Smart TV). It is not surprising that YouTube, being a subsidiary of Google, converts all its videos to the WebM format, regardless of the format of the original file. Despite everything, YouTube still supports H.264 for those who cannot play WebM.

WebM has become a political issue within the Internet community. While Google tries hard to consolidate this audio and video format, other important market players such as Apple or Microsoft cling to formats like MP4. The main reason is, above all, the patent system: both software companies use a group of MPEG-LA patents, since it is responsible for maintaining the patents of the used codecs and charging royalties for them. Google is trying to circumvent these patents with WebM.

This situation has already led to legal problems in the past, the VP8 codec being the point of contention. Several companies have criticized that their codec patent has been ignored. Google would have reached an agreement with MPEG LA, however, Nokia is not part of this patent pool and believes its rights have been ignored. A first lawsuit, in which the company faced its competitor HTC before the courts, whose devices support V8, was dismissed by the Mannheim regional court.

WebM vs. MP4: advantages and disadvantages

While WebM is relatively young, MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14) and H.264 have been used for many years. Due to its age, this format and the codec have become a standard: you will find few applications that do not support MP4. In addition to Internet services and PC and MAC software, many other devices (such as camcorders) can also use MP4. The high degree of acceptance makes the format interesting for both manufacturers and users.

But Google has been marked somewhat with the open source character of WebM: using the format is no cost to manufacturers, developers or end users. In addition, the software is distributed under an open BSD license.

The fabric behind the MP4 or H.264 license is opaque: most users, even those who create videos in a professional way, do not know if they have a valid license with the purchase of hardware or software or if any video violates The license right. WebM eliminates this confusion. The MPEG LA already announced in 2010 that the use of the H.264 codec would also be free in the future, provided that the videos created were already free for users.

For many users, the performance of both formats is more important than the controversies surrounding their patents: it is for some reason that H.264 has positioned itself as the leader of the codecs in recent years. The quality of MP4 videos of this encoding is generally considered very good. H.265 exceeds it in some aspects. WebM also convinces with the image and audio quality, but VP8 does not reach the level of H.264. To what extent the image quality of VP9 approaches H.265 (also known as HEVC) is a controversial issue; some believe that both are equal, while others say that the quality of VP9 does not reach that of H.264.

Two other determining characteristics when comparing codecs are the file size and the speed of encoding and decoding. Both directly influence the utility: for fast data transmission over the Internet, the size should be kept as small as possible. This is especially relevant in the mobile Internet field. H.264 has a bad reputation for creating, in comparison, large files. At the same time, decoding on the user’s site

What is a codec? Audio and video compression

 

Check our codecs and containers guide to not confuse you anymore. Learn what formats suit you.

Has it happened to you that you download a video file and then you can’t use it on your player? Or that you finally finish editing your video clip and it takes years to upload to the Internet? You might think it’s a problem with your file. You are not in error, only that the question is more specific: it is the codec and container you are using.

Perhaps they are somewhat strange terms, but they are gaining more and more publicity due to the growing online video and audiovisual production community. So if you plan to start your career as a youtuber, take into account the information, because if you end up with a final video with a weight of 1 GB it will not be fun to wait for it to upload…

In this guide we will explain what each of these elements consists of and how they work. We will talk about both: video and audio.

What is a codec?

Those who are dedicated to video editing know very well that storage space can be a problem. It is better to have the material you record in its original format, but most of the time this implies a considerable amount of GB of space. For example, if you record an hour of content with a high-definition camera you may need … up to 410 GB! This is complicated to keep it, much more if you want to transmit to other media. It is here that the subject gets interesting.

The term codec refers to the process of compression and decompression of video or audio. It is a tool that encodes the video through algorithms and converts it into information. This way you can decrease the file size.

The choice of codec depends on different factors. You should take into account mainly the means of reproduction for the final product. However, coding is not enough for reproduction, it is also necessary to “package” the information to be able to present it. We are talking about containers.

What are those containers?

Suppose you just finished editing a video. The final file contains both images and audio, so you need a way to display it just as you prepared it. This “package” is basically what many refer to when they talk about the format of a file. Then, a container can accept different codecs, while players can use certain containers. For example, the VLC player accepts almost all containers.

Lossless and lossless codecs (lossy and lossless)

There are different types of compression, as we will see later. However, all of them can be divided into two categories: with or without loss. Loss of what? Quality. For example, in the case of audio files, it is not the same to listen to a song in FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) format to one in MP3 (MPEG Audio Layer III). The first is coded in such a way that almost no information is lost at the time of compression, that is, fidelity is maintained.

The same goes for the video. When you want to save storage space, files with loss are compressed, that is, lossy. This makes them much easier to manage. However, it is inevitable to deal with the loss of data and, therefore, fidelity of the image or audio. On the other hand, when you want to maintain the highest possible quality and you have no problem of space, compressors are used without loss or lossless. Again, it all depends on the purpose of your file.

Digital video formats: how to differentiate them

As with text documents, photographs or audios, digital video is available in different formats or extensions.

In this sense, today we find DVD and Blu-Ray, although some of us still keep in an old VHS closet and maybe some Betacam.

But a second meaning or meaning of video formats refers to their encoding, since in digital video, as with a computer program, any file is written in a certain code.

In videos, the code influences image quality, sound quality, whether or not it includes subtitles and, especially, the relationship between quality and file size.

Thus, today we consume digital audiovisual content through physical discs (DVD, Blu-Ray), through streaming and through IPTV (Internet television), but we also handle digital video files, especially for content that we generate ourselves.

Next we will review the most common digital video formats that we can find, what is their origin and what benefits they offer. I apologize in advance for the gibberish of acronyms.

AVI

We start with the most popular format that we will find. Video files with an .AVI extension have their origin in a format that was launched in 1992 and is so popular that most smart TVs, DVD / Blu-Ray players, video game consoles and operating systems play it.

AVI is an acronym for Audio Video Interleave and not many know that it was created by Microsoft as a digital alternative without dependence on a physical format such as the then popular DVD.

Among its advantages, it allows you to include several audio channels and host content generated with different codecs (AC3 or MP3 for audio, DivX or Xvid for video), which can be an advantage but also an inconvenience with which players.

MP4

MP4 or MPEG-4 is one of the most modern formats, launched in 1998 as a standard for playing video and audio in a single digital file.

MPEG stands for Moving Picture Experts Group, the expert group that has established digital audio and video standards and was formed by two international organizations, the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission).

In summary, the MPEG and MPEG-2 format were launched in 1993 and 1995 respectively as standards for encoding digital audio and video. To understand each other, any DVD offers its audiovisual content in MPEG-2.

MP4 also supports several audio channels, but has the advantage of allowing more image and sound quality in a less heavy file, as it compresses data better. Apple, for example, opts for this format and derivatives for its iTunes content.

Related to MP4 we can find M4V (video) or M4A (audio).

MKV

The MKV video format is an open format, free to pay rights, and whose full name is Matroska, like traditional Russian dolls.

MKV saw the light at the end of 2002 and has become popular thanks to the fact that within a single MKV file we can store, together with the audio channel, several channels or audio tracks and several subtitle tracks.

Like MP4, it offers very good audio and video quality in a small space. And as a curiosity, the WebM format that allows you to integrate online video via HTML, is inspired by Matroska.

FLV

The FLV or Flash Video format was created by Macromedia, and subsequently acquired by Adobe. This format is usually found as an FLV or SWF extension.

Like the other Flash content, FLV videos are designed for online playback from the browser through Adobe Flash Player.

As we saw in a previous article, Flash will stop developing in 2020, although we still find pages that use it.

MOV

I said before that Apple is currently betting on MP4 (and AAC) to facilitate multimedia content. But its star format for many years was MOV.

MOV, from QuickTime Movie, is also called QuickTime File Format, and today it is still the default format of QuickTime, the macOS video player.

This format can also be found in many digital video cameras, since it offers very good quality