Video

File Format
Name	Video
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Video ; ;

Formats related to video and multimedia.

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, and the #Video application formats section below.

Ace Film
Bink Video (BIK)
CDXL
CFAST Disney Animation Studio
The Complete Animator Film
Cyber Paint Sequence
DPX
FLIC (FLI/FLC; animation format used by older Autodesk products)
GRASP GL animation format
IFF-DEEP
KWZ
MTV Movie (.MTV)
MTV Video (.AMV)
PPM (Flipnote)
PSMF
SGI movie
Smacker/SMK (created by RadGameTools; mostly used in games)
VDEO
WTV

Video container formats

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

See also the #Video application formats section below, for some higher-level container-like formats.

Advanced Recording Format
ASF
Camtasia Recording File
EBML
- Matroska
- WebM
FLV
ISO Base Media File Format
- MP4
- QuickTime
MPEG Program Stream (.mpg)
MPEG Transport Stream
- M2TS (MPEG-2 based packet format used on Blu-ray Discs)
MXF
Ogg
- Ogg Skeleton
- OGM
RealMedia
Replay
RIFF
- AVI
Webex Recording Format
WOT

Single-stream container formats

MPEG Elementary Stream
Packetized Elementary Stream (packet format within MPEG streams)

Video stream formats

A.k.a. codecs, these formats are raw bitstream formats commonly contained in one of the above containers (though some can be used on their own, in one way or another).

3ivx (this is just a fourcc for an MPEG-4 variant)
Apple Intermediate Codec
AV1
Cineform
Cinepak
Daala
Dirac
DivX (this is essentially MPEG-4 with some quirks)
EVC
FFV1
H.261 - See MPEG-1
H.262 - See MPEG-2
H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC)
HEVC (H.265)
HuffyYUV
Indeo
LCEVC
Moving Blocks - Acorn Replay stream
NSV Nullsoft Streaming Video
ProRes (Apple RAW)
QuickTime Animation
Sorenson Video Codec
TechSmith Screen Capture Codec
Theora
Thor
VC-1
VC-3
VP8
VP9
VVC
XviD (MPEG-4 variant)

Lossless formats

Video application formats

An application format is a name for a set of restrictions and extensions to a standard container format. It may (or may not) be restricted to a small set of stream formats. Some such formats are called profiles.

3G2
3GP
AVC (file format)
DVR-MS
Enhanced VOB
F4V
MJ2
MK3D
MKV
MP4, M4V
Ogg Skeleton
Ogg Theora - See Theora
OGM
OGV - See Ogg
Protected Interoperable File Format (PIFF)
RealMedia Variable Bitrate
RealVideo - See RealMedia
RIFF Multimedia Movie (.mmm)
VOB
WebM
WMV

Standards suites

MPEG

Metadata formats

F4M (Flash Media Manifest)
FilmConservationMetadata
SRR (reScene files)
SRS (reSample files)
XnView Frame

Subtitle / Caption formats

Caption Center (.tds)
Captions, Inc. (.cin)
Cheetah International (.asc, .cap)
CMML (Continuous Media Markup Language)
CPC-715 (.onl)
CVD (An SVCD subtitle format)
DVD subtitle format
DXFP (Distribution Format Exchange Profile)
EBU STL
EBU Timed Text‎
JACOsub (Subtitles for Amiga video)
Kate (OGG Kate subtitle format)
MacCaption (.mcc)
Matroska subtitles
National Captioning Institute (.cap, .flc)
OGT (Philips Overlay Graphics Text)
PAC Subtitles (.pac)
SAMI subtitle format (SMI)
Scenarist Closed Caption (SCC)
Spruce subtitle format (STL)
Structured Subtitle Format (SSF)
SubRip text file format (SRT)
SubStation Alpha (SSA, ASS)
SUP (HD-DVD subtitle format)
Ultech Caption (.ult)
Universal Subtitle Format (USF)
VobSub subtitle format (.sub, .idx)
WebVTT (Web Video Text Tracks Format)
XSUB (XSUB subtitle format)

Annotation formats

ELAN Annotation 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)
ZCI

Video Developer/Editor files

After Effects (.aep, .aepx)
AVID
- Media Composer (.avp, .avb)
DaVinci Resolve (.drp)
EditStudio (.eds)
Final Cut Pro (.fcp)
Final Cut Pro X (.fcpbundle)
- FCPXML
Heroglyph Project Format
iMovie (.iMovieProj)
Kdenlive
MOFF-MODD (Sony PlayMemories)
Apple Motion
3D Movie Maker (.3mm)
Windows Movie Maker (.mswmm, .wlmp)
Muvee
OpenShot
Pinnacle Studio Video Project (.stu)
Premiere (.ppj, .ptl)
Premiere Pro (.prel, .prproj)
Roxio
- DMSM (VideoWave project)
- DMSS (VideoWave SlideShow Project)
Sony Vegas
- Sony Vegas project format (.veg)
- Sony Vegas Movie Studio project format (.vf)
- Sony Vegas window layout format (.vegaswindowlayout)
VideoStudio (.vsp)
Wax
Wink
Winmorph
Wondershare Filmora (.wve, .wfp)

Video streaming services

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.

Teletext

Services that transmitted text or other data within a broadcast signal, and protocols and formats they used

Ceefax
NAPLPS (North American Presentation Layer Protocol Syntax)
Red Button Text

3D video

Uncategorized

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

Software

Refer to:

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
Video metadata standardization project
A Compressed View of Video Compression
Death, Lies, and Video Files (on how artifacts of file format conversions can end up enmeshed in political debates)