video formats codecs and containers (explained) Archives

Currently popular video containers

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Currently popular video containers

video containers
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AVI (Audio Video Interleaved) is an old (1992!) Container type and still very popular. We appreciate your appearance at Microsoft and the Video for Windows package. It is currently starting to lose ground to more modern containers due to lack of normal support for various modern audio tracks, subtitles and codecs (such as h.264), however it will remain popular for a long time due to increased support. from appliance manufacturers. It is generally used in combination with MPEG4 / DivX / Xvid codecs and compressed mp3 audio.

video container
MKV (Matroska, “Matryoshka”) is a modern container, developed as an open source project and lacks all the downsides of AVI: modern audio and video codecs, multiple audio tracks, and multi-track intro with Subtitle. Usually, but not necessarily, it is used in combination with modern h.264 / x.264 / AVC-1 codecs. Subjectively, it is the most popular for Internet distribution and local storage of high-quality video.
But nobody bothers, for example, to put MKV video inside, compressed by the “good old” Xvid. Also, in some situations, such actions are justified.
QuickTime (file extensions – *. Mov or *. Qt) is a fairly progressive container created by Apple, it supports almost all popular codecs and subtitle embeddings, moreover, unlike MKV, it is much more suitable for editing video material. engraved on said container. …
However, its normal support is only possible with the Apple QuickTime package installed on the computer; third-party open source reverse engineering developments do not provide full functionality.
ASF / WMV / WMA (Advanced Stream Format / Windows Media Video): Microsoft’s AVI replacement, file extensions, respectively: ASF, WMV, WMA (for audio files). Despite all the progressive innovations (support for multiple tracks, chapters, new codecs), support for h.264 is still difficult for them, which puts the future of this container in doubt.
FLV – Adobe Flash Video. It became tremendously popular thanks to YouTube. In the process of evolution, I learned to use modern audio and video codecs, but its focus on short, highly compressed Internet videos limits the scope of its distribution. For some reason embedded subtitles are not supported.
BDMV is in fact an uncompressed Blu-ray disc image, it has all the imaginable “advantages” (support for all modern audio and video formats, up to 3D), but it has serious demands on disk space and loading decoder. Therefore, the support of hardware players is still very limited.
3GP is a container focused on filming videos with mobile phones. Hence the limited support for audio formats, video formats are supported very progressively. There are no alternate audio tracks, timecode instead of subtitles. The weapon of a mobile reporter, in a nutshell.
MP4 is quite a progressive container, it supports video compression not only in MPEG4, as you might think from the name, but also using more modern methods. But I lost to the “matryoshka” in terms of support for subtitles and audio formats.
Divx is a container from the creators of the codec of the same name. Despite some progressiveness, it did not receive the same distribution. The reason is that you can only use the codec of the same name for video, and who needs it after that, if the “nesting doll” is more universal.
VOB is actually the official name of this MPEG 2 program stream container, that is, it is actually the content of the DVD. It supports only two video codecs, MPEG1 and MPEG2, otherwise the standard of the “before HDTV” era, because there is support for subtitles, chapters (if you take the whole disc as a single container) and various audio formats, including very progressive ones.
.ts MPEG 2 Transport stream, also found in files with the m2ts and mts extensions, popular due to digital satellite transmission, capable of using, despite the name, modern codecs and FullHD resolutions. Popular with fans of satellite TV, but inferior to “Matryoshka” in terms of flexibility of use.
OGG is a container formally designed to store audio in the OGG Vorbis format, but it can also store video. Despite the stated capabilities, it is exotic (this applies to video), for sound this container has already taken hold.
WAV is a container for storing sound, not necessarily uncompressed.
ISO is just an optical disc image. Anything can be inside. How the player will assimilate it is up to its developers.
MPG: Legacy VideoCD, MPEG 1 single format video container.

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Video containers

Video containers

Video Container

For most users, video files with AVI extension are a separate video file format. In fact, this is not the case. In this case, the extension of an AVI video file is a container of a certain structure, which is used to store various information, such as video and audio data streams, and possibly also subtitles. The AVI video file container can hold video of almost any format, and maybe just audio. Next, we will consider the most widely used containers that can store audio and video information.

video container

AVI is the most popular and widespread type of video file. It was developed by Microsoft during the early days of the Windows operating system and is designed to store synchronized audio and video streams. AVI has a number of limitations that prevent the latest advances in data encoding from being applied, but despite this, it remains popular. Several of these restrictions were successfully circumvented in various clever ways, for example using variable bit rate audio streaming. In the Windows operating system, absolutely all video encoding programs can work with this container.

The OGM container is a completely open system that is part of the OGG project. It can accommodate a video stream of any format and sound in Ogg format, but it also has support for tracks in MP3 format. The main advantage over AVI is its instant rewind capability and built-in error correction.

MKV, called “Matryoshka” on the Internet in Russian, is a relatively recent new development of the video container. It is completely free and open source for any developer. MKV allows you to combine the latest advancements in video and audio encoding. When generating a file, any codecs can be used, both video and audio. Additionally, it supports variable bit rate, a DVD-like navigation menu, and the ability to link to movie chapters. To play files, you must install the Matroska Splitter filter, which will split the container content into sequences. To process video in this container, it will not be easy to find a suitable video encoding program that can trim MKV without re-encoding.

MP4 was developed by the MPEG group to store audio and video computing, and it also supports some types of animation. To play animations in 2D and 3D formats, the installation of special players is required, but these capabilities are still in the testing stage. Most of the portable devices save their files in the MP4 container.

The Quick Time container is used primarily on the Apple platform. Files with this container have the MOV extension and contain high-quality compressed video and sound. It can also be used on standard PC platforms, which requires the installation of the appropriate codec.

CODECS AND CONTAINERS

CODECS AND CONTAINERS

I.CODEC

Codecs are components (circuits, modules) or computer programs that create a stream of data to encode and / or can decode. The term “Codec” is a made-up word that consists of parts of the English terms CO der and DEC o. (En) Encoders are used to encode data streams for transmission (eg Reed-Solomon contributes to DVB error protection), Encrypt (eg AACS as content protection for Blu-ray Disc) or to reduce the amount of data (compression method, for example, MP3 for audio). The decoder (decoder) retrieves the encoder’s original input information from the encoded data stream.

codecs and containers

2. CODECS FOR COMPRESSING DATA STREAMS

No medium of storage or transmission is infinitely large. Therefore, the available resources must be budgeted. Therefore, it is very important to reduce the amount of data that must be transmitted or stored. There are different compression methods adapted to the information to be compressed.

Codecs and containers
Each compression method has its advantages and disadvantages. There is a trade-off between compression factor (= ratio of source file size to target file size), compression quality (= lossless / lossy -> type and number of artifacts), speed, usability , decoder distribution and finally also costs. Compression processes and their implementation in the market play an extremely important economic role, since compression algorithms can be patented and their use must be compensated by the payment of licenses by device manufacturers or software users. Some kind of content encryption can also be achieved through proprietary and undisclosed compression algorithms, allowing distribution control.

Operating principle

Compressing a digital signal means that parts of the information must be suppressed without changing the content of the information. These ‘superfluous’ data, the so-called redundancies and irrelevancies are components of information, for example an image, that are present several times (redundant) or cannot be perceived by humans (irrelevant). Furthermore, redundancies can also occur in the digital data describing the image, for example. All compression methods are based on the principle of eliminating redundant information. In most compression processes, several different algorithms are used one after the other to eliminate redundancies in content and data. Algorithms that discover and avoid redundancies on a purely mathematical basis usually work lossless without loss), that is, no information is lost. After compression and subsequent decompression the information then corresponds 1: 1 to the original. Compression algorithms that evaluate information components based on physiological models (for example, MP3) for their importance and then discard unimportant information (irrelevance reduction), function lossy with loss), since information it is lost during compression.

3. FILES WITH COMPRESSED CONTENT

If the data is compressed through a certain process, it must be put into a format in which it can be distributed. These can be streams that are streamed like DVB, for example, or files that are stored on a storage medium. The compressed “raw data” thus creates a structure that allows the data as in a container (transport container). The way this container or container format is made depends on the transmission medium, the operating system and the specific application.

II. CONTAINER FORMATS

Container files are file structures that simplify external (multimedia) data and allow exchange, even across platform boundaries. Container formats describe how this user data is stored (not how it is encoded!). In principle, cabinet files can contain all kinds of data, but they are generally restricted to specific data. Specialized in data types. For example, PDF files are ideal for reproducing documents that are true to the original, consisting of font information and raster or vector graphics, whereas an AVI file generally contains movie and sound information.

Container formats for multimedia applications always use already encoded data streams, i.e. compressed

Formats, extensions and codecs: what do they mean?

When it comes to audio files, we can talk about formats, extensions and codecs. In summary, we can say that the format refers to the type of file, identified by its extension (* .mp3, * .wav, * .ogg, * .wma etc), which often tells us how it has been encoded or which one is your codec.

Normally those endings are mixed. But what is important to know is that, as in videos, files with the same type of extension do not always have the same codec and vice versa.

This information is valid so that you do not feel lost in case you do not understand the reason why a software, which normally plays your * .m4a files, does not play another with the same extension, for example.

Such a situation could indicate that the codecs used are different. In that case, the solution would be to use other software to read the file or to convert it (new encoding). This can be done even in video editors.

The variations of formats and codecs depend on the options of the companies that develop the softwares that execute the files. In these cases, there are many things at stake, such as technical specifications and relations with patents.

On the other hand, files are usually divided into two types: uncompressed or compressed.

Uncompressed files

Audio recording equipment usually offers us options to record files without losing any information. These uncompressed files can be generated in various formats and extensions, such as WAV, AIFF, FLAC and ALAC. For those who are familiar with photography, they are equivalent to RAW or DNG.

As they are usually very heavy, using lossless formats in the final product is only recommended in some cases, such as:

when the final product can be processed by the consumer (files destined for sound banks, for example);
when there will be recording on physical media (CD, DVD and Blue-Ray);
or for the audiophile market (for a matter of perceived value and guarantee of high quality).
But, even if you don’t want to end the process with a WAV (one of the most common), lossless formats can be very useful at the editing stage. Because they contain a lot of information, they withstand more extreme alterations without harming the audio quality.

With plugins, conversions and processing, they can be manipulated more freely, guaranteeing excellent quality, even if a compressed file is subsequently generated.

Compressed files

Most of the equipment available on the market (cameras, cell phones and even audio recorders) usually deliver already compressed files. This type of file is more practical, easier to process, requires less storage space and is very small (in bytes).

Some examples of these formats are: 3GP, AAC, M4A, OGG, WMA and MP3, which is, without a doubt, the best known. Files are like JPEG or GIF in the images field.

Through a complex algorithm, these files are generated seeking to keep only relevant information for our ears. Depending on the compression mode, we can generate an MP3 from a WAV and have a file 10 times smaller, without perceptible alterations in audio quality.

Speaking of MP3, despite its great popularity, it is currently considered an obsolete format, since others, such as ACC (extension .acc or .m4a), make it possible to obtain smaller files and with higher quality.

Even so, MP3 is still widely used, since a large part of the softwares and equipment were developed for this format. So, to talk about compression rates, we will use it as an example.

Compression rate: what is its relationship to audio quality?
Now that you understand that a file can be compressed and maintain sufficient quality for our ears, you should know that the level of compression can vary greatly.

And it is by the value of the compression rate (or bitrate) that we manage to control the file size and, therefore, the audio quality.

For example, a 320 kbps (kilobits per second) MP3 may sound as good as uncompressed audio from a CD or DVD. As the bitrate value decreases, the file size decreases, but the sound losses become noticeable, depending on the audio.