A media container format (or generally referred to as wrapper format) could be a format which will contain varied types of data such as audio and video data. The info is compressed employing a codec.
A codec (a compound of coder and decoder) is an algorithm used to compress and/or decompress a multimedia knowledge stream so as to reduce the quantity of bytes required to store or send.
Some container formats are limited to audio, like WAV files for Windows, AIFF for Mac and XMF; some are limited to still pictures like FITS and TIFF. There also are containers that are versatile; it will hold several types of audio, video and other media like ASF files for Windows, MP4 and Matroska. The foremost common multimedia containers are:
? 3GP - employed by mobile phones
? ASF - normal WMA and WMV container
? AVI - commonplace Windows container
? Matroska - open normal container
? MPEG - commonplace container for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2
? MP4 - commonplace container for MPEG-four
? Ogg - free and open standard container for codecs Vorbis (audio) and Theora (video)
The distinctions between totally different container formats come back up from 5 (5) main problems:
? Popularity. Widely supported container.
? Overhead. Example: A two-hour film might be 3MB larger when in AVI than when in Matroska (MKV). The overhead is that the distinction between AVI and MKV that is 3MB.
? Support new codec functionality and features. Some older container formats does not support codec feature such as VBR audio and B-frames.
? Subtitles, chapters, meta-tags, and user-data support.
? Streaming media support.
Here is a comparison of the various in style container formats nowadays (from Wikipedia).
3GP
Support for B-frames; variable bit rate audio; variable frame rate; 3GPP Timed Text subtitle; support MPEG-four Part 2, H.263, and H.264/MPEG-four AVC video formats; support AAC, AMR-NB, AMR-WB+, AMR-WB, HE-AAC and HE-AAC version 2 audio formats
Advanced Systems Formats
Support for B-frames, chapters, subtitles, and metadata/tags; variable bit rate audio; variable frame rate; support almost any video format through DMO or VFW; support almost any audio through ACM or DMO
AVI
Support for B-frames; variable bit rate audio; variable frame rate; chapters and subtitles are via a 3rd party modification; support nearly any video format through VFW; support nearly any audio formats through ACM
Matroska (MKV, MKA)
Support for B-frames, chapters, subtitles, and metadata/tags; variable bit rate audio; variable frame rate; support virtually any video and audio formats
MPEG Video File (MPG, MPEG)
Support for B-frames; variable bit rate audio; variable frame rate; support MPEG-one, MPEG-two video formats; support MPEG-one Layers I, II, III (mp3) audio formats, alternative formats solely in private streams
MP4
Support for B-frames, metadata/tags, and menus; variable bit rate audio; variable frame rate; chapters a) in specially formatted text track, and b) in userdata atom will not work together with the sceneDescription, or segmentDescriptor; ttxt and BIFS subtitles, VobSubs subtitle with non-public objectTypeIndication is not operating with the sceneDescription; support Dirac, H.263, MPEG-four ASP, H.264/MPEG-four AVC, VC-1, and other video formats; support AC-three, ALS, Apple Lossless, SLS, MPEG-a pair of/4 (HE)-AAC, MPEG-one/two Layers I, II, III (MP3), Vorbis(with personal objectTypeIndication), and other audio format
Ogg
Support for B-frames, chapters, and Ogg Writ and Ogg Kate subtitles; variable bit rate audio; variable frame rate; support virtually any video formats through VFW and supports almost any audio format through ACM
With a growing variety of media containers, no surprise audio video converters are common these days. Some converters can convert almost all different varieties of audio or video formats while others are limited to standard formats today.
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