Video File Formats

Before we take a closer look at the most common video formats and compare their different features, let’s start by defining exactly what a video format is. A video file is a specific type of file format that contains all the important in­for­ma­tion about a video. Depending on the exact file type, this can include image files, audio files, menus, and even subtitles.

Video formats have a number of technical char­ac­ter­is­tics, for example, the frame rate, color depth, film format, and audio track. These four char­ac­ter­is­tics determine what the video will look like to viewers and also their file size. For example, the higher the res­o­lu­tion and the higher the frame rate, the bigger the amount of data that has to be stored in the video file. Large files will, of course, take up more space on your hard disk, but you can use a technique called com­pres­sion to reduce the size. Note, however, that com­press­ing a file will affect the video quality.

The most fre­quent­ly used online video platform is YouTube, although Facebook is also a very effective way of dis­trib­ut­ing video content to a large number of viewers. Both websites allow you to upload multiple videos and share them with a wide audience. Common video formats should be actively supported by both platforms. Indeed, you can upload any of the following file types (among others):

• MOV
• MP4
• AVI
• WMF
• FLV
• WebM

However, both the size of the file and the file format will determine how long the platform takes to convert and publish your video, so it’s worth thinking carefully about which format to use. The same applies if you want to upload videos to your website.

First of all, it’s important to un­der­stand the dif­fer­ence between container formats and video codecs. When people talk about video formats, they’re usually referring to the container format. The “container” is where the video, audio, and metadata is stored. It makes sure that all of the in­for­ma­tion in a file can be retrieved. Codecs, on the other hand, are used to encode videos. In par­tic­u­lar, this de­ter­mines the type and level of com­pres­sion. The most well-known video codecs are H.264, H.265, VP8, and VP9. To encode a video, you have to use a video editing program.

MP4 has long been one of the most popular video file formats used on the web. It offers an excellent com­pro­mise between com­pres­sion and video quality. The main codecs used with MP4 are H.264 and H.265.

Ad­van­tages

MP4 allows a good level of com­pres­sion without com­pro­mis­ing on image quality. One of its main ad­van­tages is that it allows you to easily combine several audio tracks and other elements in a single format.

Dis­ad­van­tages

The high level of com­pres­sion applied by the standard codecs makes MP4 files difficult to edit and produce.

AVI stands for Audio Video In­ter­leave. In other words, it is a format that combines audio and video. The format is widely used, but from a technical point of view, it is now somewhat outdated.

Ad­van­tages

The key advantage of this video format is that it is very widely accepted. There are barely any browsers or video players that don’t support AVI files.

Dis­ad­van­tages

The technical lim­i­ta­tions of this file format, and above all the lack of options for working with multiple audio tracks, mean that fewer and fewer users are turning to AVI.

MKV is currently one of the most popular video file formats on the web. It is a powerful container format that can hold audio tracks, menus, and many other functions in addition to video files.

Ad­van­tages

Users choose MKV for its high-quality video files and its vast range of ap­pli­ca­tions. It’s true that MKV format is only com­pat­i­ble with one codec, but this is freely available online.

Dis­ad­van­tages

The main drawback of this file format is that the level of com­pres­sion is low, meaning you can’t create very small files.

The MOV video format was developed by Apple and was orig­i­nal­ly intended for use with QuickTime. However, it has long been surpassed by al­ter­na­tive video formats and is no longer used much online.

Ad­van­tages

The format has the advantage of being easy to implement in Apple en­vi­ron­ments and allowing for the creation of very small files thanks to a high degree of com­pres­sion.

Dis­ad­van­tages

On the other hand, the powerful com­pres­sion is also a dis­ad­van­tage, because it results in loss of data and image quality. In other words, although you can create rel­a­tive­ly small, compact files, the end result is usually dis­ap­point­ing.

One of the reasons that the OGG video file format was developed was to bring more flex­i­bil­i­ty to a market that was largely dominated by rights holders. OGG was, therefore, one of the first formats that could be used in the popular Linux en­vi­ron­ment, and quickly became well es­tab­lished on the market.

Ad­van­tages

The advantage of OGG lies in the fact that it is patent-free, widely accepted and is supported natively by the majority of browsers. This means that this format is a sensible choice if you want to add a video to your own website.

Dis­ad­van­tages

Despite its wide dis­tri­b­u­tion, the OGG video format does have some dis­ad­van­tages. Both Safari and Internet Explorer only partially support it for example, so your video may not be displayed properly in these browsers.

VOB es­tab­lished itself early on as a standard for DVDs and is therefore mainly used for this type of media. It isn’t suitable for online use due to a lack of licenses and its low level of com­pres­sion.

Ad­van­tages

The format can be read by any DVD player and offers a low level of com­pres­sion. It can also contain multiple audio tracks.

Dis­ad­van­tages

This format isn’t suitable for use online because you can’t upload VOB files to the various hosting platforms or to your own website. Also, a special codec is required to play videos in this format, and it isn’t freely available.

The WMV format was developed by Microsoft and is still widely used today. Because this format supports Digital Rights Man­age­ment (DRM), it is generally used for video files that need to be copy protected.

Ad­van­tages

The format is reliably handled by all of the Microsoft operating systems.

Dis­ad­van­tages

Since it is an older format, there is only partial support for very large video files. There are also lim­i­ta­tions on file size and video quality.