Synchronization information to make it all play together.

Subs and interactivity elements like chapters and menus.

Encoded video and audio tracks (can be several in different languages).

Let’s look at video file formats, containers and codecs from a developer’s perspective and distill their main characteristics.

Containers and codecs influence how the data is stored and compressed, hence have a direct impact on video size and quality.

Containers and codecs define whether a file will be played on a particular device.

Video file formats and extensions don’t tell much about file characteristics.

There are three main reasons to start differentiating formats, codecs, and containers: But the truth is, some of them are indeed file formats defined by their multimedia containers, and others are codecs that help to shrink video and audio data inside those containers. For non-savvy users, they stand for different types of video files. You’ve probably come across such acronyms as AVI, MPEG-4, WMV, DivX, WebM, or MP4.

Video file formats, codecs, and containers: what’s the difference? We didn’t cover the part about streaming in much detail, but ping us in the comments if you’re interested. 💡 This content will be helpful for developers who are working on video sharing apps, CMSs, and ecommerce platforms. Glance through this article for all the why's and get some encoding automation options. Which video formats are the best in terms of size/quality and are compatible with most players on the web, Android & iOS? The short answer for 2021 is: WebM backed up by MP4 is the winning stack to consider. First published on May 14, 2021, in Engineering Everything Insights Engineering News Product Culture Compliance Different types of video file formats and why WebM and MP4 beat them all

Quicktime file format