video media containers Archives

Media containers and their formats (Part 2)

Free Download Mp4Gain

Media containers and their formats (Part 2)

MEDIA CONTAINER

MKV (Matroska or Matryoshka) is the most popular multimedia container format that meets all modern requirements. Mainly focused on the H.264 codec family. Its main features include:

OSD menu creation;
divide the content into chapters;
fast backward through the file;
switch “on the fly” between audio and video tracks, as well as subtitles.
Therefore, it is a package that can contain many video, audio and subtitle sequences, allowing you to store a movie with all the additional materials in a single file, while providing a high level of navigation through the multimedia content. . It is also worth noting that MKV has high error resistance, modular scalability, and supports streaming materials over the Internet.

The wide popularization of this format is facilitated by the fact that it is an open source project. That is, for personal use, it is completely free. Currently, the most commonly used files with the “.mkv” extension are high definition video files, typically with multiple audio tracks and channels of subtitles.

MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14) is another modern file format for storing digital video and audio streams, which is part of the MPEG-4 standard. It has almost all the same features as MKV. But MP4 has an advantage: files in this format can be played on almost any device, from smartphones to game consoles. MKV, in addition to personal computers, is compatible only with the most modern media centers.

Don’t forget the fact that MP4 is a “native” format for all Apple products from iPhone to Mac. So if you are a fan of “apple” iron, then it is better to collect and store your collection of home videos in MP4.

It should be noted that the MP4 container, unlike MKV, has a number of limitations and cannot contain video of the MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and WMV standards, as well as audio in AC-3 (Dolby Digital) and WMA formats.

VOB (Versioned Object Base) is the main container used to store multimedia content on DVD. It can contain multiple MPEG-2 video streams, up to nine audio tracks, up to 32 channels with subtitles and an OSD.

FLV (Flash Video) is a media container used to place and stream video clips on the global Internet. Used by many of the major video hosting services such as RuTube, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, and others. The video stream in the FLV file is generally encoded using the H.263 or H.264 codecs, and the audio is MP3 or AAC.

MOV is a file format developed by Apple to store videos, graphics, animations, and 3D. It owes its appearance to QuickTime media playback technology.

TS and M2 TS are specialized containers for storing HD video. TS is used in IPTV and DVB digital television transmission. It is true that this container cannot contain subtitles at all. M2TS is a standard container for Blu-Ray video, which can include video and audio streams provided by the BD-ROM standard, as well as subtitles in PGS graphic format.

Free Download Mp4Gain

Mp4Gain Main Window

Mp4Gain Features

Free Download Mp4Gain

Media containers and their formats

Media containers and their formats (Part 1)

Container Formats

Like any other digital information, video is stored on disk in the form of files, or as they are also called, media containers that contain video, audio, and other streams, as well as metadata. At any time, you can take, for example, video or audio tracks from the container, recode them and put them in another container, that is, change the format of the video file. Multimedia containers can be of different types (formats) and the file extension indicates which type they belong to.

MEDIA CONTAINERS

Even though most of the containers are bound to a specific format, some of them can store videos in completely different standards. For example, a file with the AVI extension can contain clips in MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 formats. What then influences the type of container?

Of course, to a greater extent, the quality of the movie is determined by the codec and parameters that were set during compression. But a lot also depends on the container. Various types of video files have certain requirements and restrictions regarding the number of audio tracks, subtitle channels, types of codecs used, as well as compatibility with consumer players and players.

Now, let’s take a look at the most popular video file formats and take a quick look at their advantages and disadvantages.

AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is the oldest and most traditional of all types of media containers, first used by Microsoft in 1992. It can contain video and audio information compressed using various combinations of codecs. Therefore, AVI files with external similarity can be very different in their internal “padding”, and to accurately determine their content, you will need to use special programs (for example, VideoToolBox).

Strictly speaking, this container has been outdated for a long time and has a number of serious drawbacks: the impossibility of containing mixed videos (for example, NTSC and PAL) and alternative audio tracks, the lack of timestamps and frame rates, the lack of normal operation with subtitles, poor support for modern codecs, etc.

However, this old man does not want to withdraw in any way, because a large amount of multimedia content on the network is still distributed using this format. The secret of such longevity, most likely, is the versatility of AVI, although on the other hand this is also its disadvantage. Sometimes you have to sweat a lot to open an AVI file created with exotic codecs.

Currently popular video containers

Currently popular video containers

video containers
:
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.

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.