Video

Introduction

 * For an excellent introduction to the issues around audio and video formats, see A Primer on Codecs for Moving Image and Sound Archives - and 10 Recommendations for Codec Selection & Management PDF version
 * Basics of streaming protocols

Pure video formats
These formats are "monolithic" video formats, meaning that the file format and the encoding of the video data are tied to each other.

See also Graphics: Animated image formats.


 * Ace Film
 * AVC (file format)
 * Bink Video (BIK)
 * Cyber Paint Sequence
 * DPX
 * Enhanced VOB
 * FLIC (FLI/FLC; animation format used by older Autodesk products)
 * GRASP GL animation format
 * IFF-DEEP
 * MJ2
 * RealMedia Variable Bitrate
 * RealVideo
 * Smacker/SMK (created by RadGameTools; mostly used in games)
 * WMV

Video container formats
These formats are only containers for video, which can contain videos in many different encodings (or even other data like audio)


 * 3G2
 * 3GP
 * ASF
 * AVI
 * F4V
 * FLV
 * M4V
 * Matroska
 * MK3D
 * MKV
 * MP4
 * MXF
 * Ogg containers (with their variants OGM, OGV, etc.)
 * QuickTime
 * Replay
 * VOB
 * WebM

Video stream formats
These formats are raw bitstream formats commonly contained in one of the above containers (but not necessarily)


 * Apple Intermediate Codec
 * Cinepak
 * Daala
 * Dirac
 * H.264
 * HEVC (H.265)
 * HuffyYUV
 * Indeo
 * Moving Blocks - Acorn Replay stream
 * MPEG and all of its variants (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, etc.)
 * 3ivx (this is just another fourcc for an MPEG-4 variant)
 * DivX (this is essentially MPEG-4 with some quirks)
 * M2TS (MPEG-2 based packet format used on Blu-ray Discs)
 * Packetized Elementary Stream (packet format within MPEG streams)
 * XviD (another MPEG-4 variant)
 * Sorenson Video Codec
 * Theora
 * VC-1
 * VC-3
 * VP8
 * VP9

Metadata formats

 * F4M (Flash Media Manifest)
 * SRR (reScene files)
 * SRS (reSample files)

Subtitle formats

 * CMML (Continuous Media Markup Language)
 * CVD (An SVCD subtitle format)
 * DVD subtitle format
 * DXFP (Distribution Format Exchange Profile)
 * JACOsub (Subtitles for Amiga video)
 * Kate (OGG Kate subtitle format)
 * Matroska subtitles
 * OGT (Philips Overlay Graphics Text)
 * SAMI subtitle format (SMI)
 * Spruce Subtitle Format (STL)
 * Structured Subtitle Format (SSF)
 * SubRip text file format (SRT)
 * SubStation Alpha (SSA, ASS)
 * SUP (HD-DVD subtitle format)
 * Universal Subtitle Format (USF)
 * VobSub subtitle format (.sub, .idx)
 * WebVTT (Web Video Text Tracks Format)
 * XSUB (XSUB subtitle format)

Interactive media files
(generally accompany video streams and other multimedia, tying them together in a presentation or user-interaction as on a disc)


 * BDMV (Blu-ray disc files for user interactivity)
 * CLPI (Blu-ray disc clip info files)
 * MPLS (Blu-ray disc playlists)

Video Developer/Editor files

 * Heroglyph Project Format

Video streaming services

 * Amazon Instant Video
 * Hulu
 * Netflix Streaming
 * Vimeo
 * Xfinity On Demand
 * YouTube

Television broadcast formats

 * BTSC (NTSC with multichannel sound carrier)
 * NTSC
 * PAL
 * SECAM

Also see Chyron for on-screen graphics.

See Radio for more details of how such broadcasts are transmitted.

3D video

 * Side-by-side 3D format
 * Top-and-bottom 3D format
 * SENSIO Hi-Fi 3D format
 * Blu-Ray 3D format

Uncategorized
These formats might eventually get sorted into the above categories, or might not quite fit in any of them.
 * AVS
 * Canon XF-AVC
 * Canopus ProCoder
 * Cineform
 * Cinema Craft Encoder
 * CinemaDNG
 * Elecard
 * FIASCO
 * InterVideo
 * MainConcept
 * MSU Lossless Video Codec
 * NSD (Nero Super Video CD)
 * SheerVideo
 * TechSmith Screen Capture Codec

Links

 * MultimediaWiki: Video Codecs
 * MultimediaWiki: Container Formats
 * The trajectory of television
 * HTML5 video tag
 * MPC-HC: media player for Windows handling just about all video/audio formats
 * LG Smart TVs logging USB filenames and viewing info to LG servers
 * Lossless vs. corruption (video)
 * Library of Congress Recommended Format Specifications: Moving Image Works
 * Video Quality Report (from Google) - shows how your Internet connection fares with streaming video
 * Excel sheet that plays video and audio
 * MediaInfo: software that shows metadata for audio/video files
 * HTML5 video guide