Video Formats

Following are some of the video and audio formats:

3GP & 3G2
3GP is a multimedia container format developed by Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for 3G phones. 3G2 is very similar to 3GP, but was developed for 3G CDMA2000 multimedia devices. 3GPP, 3GPP2 are used for creation, delivery and playback of multimedia over third generation wireless networks.

ASF is the abbreviation for Advanced System Format, and was developed by Microsoft. ASF is more commonly used for streaming media. The most common file types contained in ASF are WMV and WMA file formats.

AVCHD, Advanced Video Coding High Definition, was developed by Sony and Panasonic back in 2006 primarily to be used in Camcorders. Large files created by HD videos can be compressed and stored in hard drives, flash drives, DVD, etc using this technology. It can also be directly burnt to a blu-ray disc.

AVI is the abbreviation for Audio Video Interleave. It was developed by Microsoft back in 1992. Because of its widespread use, it has become the de facto standard for storing video and audio information in the PC. The advantage of AVI is its simple architecture and because of this it is supported by most web browsers and operating systems such as, Windows, Linix, Unix, Apple OS, etc.

Blu-ray Disc is an optical storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format and it was developed by the Blu-ray disc association (Apple, Dell, Hitachi, Panasonic, Sony, TDK to name a few). It was developed to record HD video, store it and playback.

Digital Audio Tape, also known as DAT format, was developed by Sony back in 1987 and it is a audio recording and playback medium. Although it was developed as an alternate for audio cassette, it never gained consumer industry recognition.

DPG is a special format of MPEG1 video and it is primarily used in Nintendo DS.

DVD technology replaced VCR’s as a convenient option. One can record on the DVD, then erase it, re-record, etc. There are so many DVD formats: DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, etc.

DVR-MS (Microsoft Digital Video Recording) is a video and audio container developed by Microsoft for storing TV content in Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

FLIC file formats with extensions .FLI and .FLC are used to store animation files. It was developed by Autodesk.

FLV (abbreviation for Flash Video) is used to deliver video over the internet using the Adobe Flash Player. It has been accepted as the default online video format by sites like You Tube, Yahoo! Video, Reuters, etc. BBC has announced that it prefers flash videos for submission. FLV operates as streaming video which means that while the file downloads it also plays. According to Adobe, almost 80 percent of internet videos use the flash video technology.

HDV is a format for storing high definition video in DV cassette tape. It was developed by JVC.

It is a new video codec standard developed to succeed MPEG2, MPEG4, etc formats. It is also known as Advanced Video Coding (AVC).

IFO file contains all the information a DVD Player needs to know about a DVD such as where the chapters start, menu functions and navigation so that one will know how to play the DVD properly.

M2T is high definition video recording format used by many HD camcorders.

M4V is a video file format developed by Apple and it is very close to the MP3 format. Apple uses the M4V format to encode TV episodes, movies, etc in the iTunes store.

The Matroska Multimedia Container can hold unlimited number of video, audio, picture, etc in one file. It has the file extension .mkv. It is similar to AVI, but it is a open standard. MKV is not a codec, rather it is a container that can hold several video, audio, etc. Matroska is based on Extensible Binary Meta Language (EBML), which makes it easy to make changes to the file. Matroska is gaining popularity because of its advanced features. But there are no players that can play .mkv files so, it needs to be converted to MPEG1 VCD or MPEG2 VCD using programs like, Online Video Converter.

MOD is a file format used primarily for music. They were used in several camcorders for so many years. MOD is MPEG2 formatted video.

Files with .mov extension are of QuickTime (QT) multimedia format. This format is used to save movies and other video files. Although ,mov are commonly found on the web, in order to play them, they need to be converted to .avi, .mpeg or .wmv format. Please use Online Video Converter, to convert files of type .mov.

MP3 refers to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio layer III designed by Moving Picture Experts Group. MP3 is an audio specific format designed for digital audio compression. It is widely used for the transfer and playback of music on digital audio players. MP3 uses a lossy compression algorithm that compresses the file to 1/11 of its original size and still sounds like a faithful reproduction of the original music.

MP4 also known as MPEG-4 Part 14, is used to store digital audio and video streams. It is compatible with iPod and other portable video devices. It can be used for swapping high definition video’s online as well as cell phone streaming and sharing. MP4 files use Apple’s Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) codec.

MTS and M2TS were jointly developed by Sony and Panasonic back in 2006 and they refer to high definition digital video camera recorder format AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition). AVCHD is based on MPEG4 video codec.

PPT, also known as Microsoft Powerpoint file format.

Quick Time (QT) was developed by Apple for Apple OS and Windows. It is a file format for storing movies and playing it back with video and sound. In Windows, files with .qt format appear as .mov file extension.

RM, also known as RealMedia is a multimedia container format developed by RealNetworks. It is used for streaming content through the internet.

SWF(Shockwave Flash) was developed by Adobe. It is the dominant format for displaying animation on the web.

MOD and TOD are tapeless video formats used by JVC.

VOB (Video Object) is rather a container than a codec for digital video, digital audio and subtitles. VOB format is based on MPEG formats. VOB is used for storing DVD movies with digital video/audio and subtitles. One can use, Online Video Converter, to convert .vob files to AVI or MPEG or 3GP file formats.

VRO stands for DVD Video Recording Format. This is used for recording streaming (real time) DVD discs. It works with .ifo files which contains information a DVD player needs to know about a DVD. Using online video converter, one can easily convert files from .vro format to .mpeg format

WMA is the abbreviation for Windows Media Audio, an audio compression format developed by Microsoft. WMA sounds as good as MP3 while utilizing only half the file size of MP3.

WMV is the abbreviation for Windows Media Video, a video compression format developed by Microsoft as a competition for RealVideo. The latest of this, WMV 9 has gained support for physical delivery of formats such as HD DVD and Blu-Ray disc. The advantage of .wmv is it can deal with all types of video formats. The advantage of .wmv is, large video files can be compressed using this format, yet retaining great video quality. Several online radio stations use this technology. To convert .wmv to MPEG, AVI or 3GP files, one can use, Online Video Converter.

XDCAM format uses multiple video compression and media container formats. There are four different product lines for XDCAM – XDCAM SD, XDCAM HD, XDCAM EX and XDCAM HD422.

XViD is a video codec library. Many modern DVD and Blu-ray players can play XViD files.