Video

Revision as of 12:03, 1 July 2014

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
• 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
• QuickTime
• Replay
• VOB
• WebM
• OGG containers (with their variants OGM, OGV, etc.)

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
• 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)
  • 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

• 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)

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

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

Unknown, or "It's Complicated"

These formats might eventually get sorted into the above categories, or might not quite fit in any of them.

• AVS
• Canopus ProCoder
• Cineform
• Cinema Craft Encoder
• 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