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These tables compare features of multimedia container formats, most often used for storing or streaming digital video or digital audio content. To see which multimedia players support which container format, look at comparison of media players.
Format | Filename extension | Owner or creator | Initial release | License |
VBR audio | VFR | Hardware players | Streaming |
Metadata |
Chapters |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Matroska | .mkv, .mk3d |
CoreCodec |
2002-12 | Freely licensed |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
MPEG-4 Part 14 (MP4) | .mp4, .m4v |
MPEG | 2001-10 | Patent encumbered |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not standard |
QuickTime File Format (QTFF) | .mov, .qt | Apple Inc. | 1991-12 | Proprietary |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Advanced Systems Format (ASF) | .asf, .wmv |
Microsoft | 1996-09 | Royalties on codecs |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Yes | Yes |
Audio Video Interleave (AVI) | .avi | Microsoft | 1992-11 | Proprietary |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes | No | Yes | Needs alterations |
Material Exchange Format (MXF) | .mxf | SMPTE | 2004-09 | Patent-free |
Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Yes | No |
MPEG program stream (PS) | .m2p, .ps |
MPEG | 1993-08 | Patent-free |
Yes | Yes |
Yes | No | No | No |
MPEG transport stream (TS) | .ts, .tsv |
MPEG | 1995-07 | Patent-free |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
BDAV MPEG-2 transport stream (M2TS) | .m2ts, .mts | BDA | 2004-08 | Patent encumbered | Yes | Yes | Yes | With DVB |
Needs multiple files |
Needs multiple files |
Video Object (VOB) | .vob | DVD Forum | 1996-11 | Patent encumbered | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Needs multiple files |
Enhanced VOB (EVO) | .evo | DVD Forum | 2006-03 | Patent encumbered |
Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Needs multiple files |
3GPP (3GP) | .3gp | 3GPP | 2003-04 | Patent encumbered | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Yes | No |
3GPP2 (3G2) | .3g2 | 3GPP2 | 2004-01 | Patent encumbered | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Flash Video (F4V) | .f4v |
Adobe Inc. | 2007-12 | Patent encumbered | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Flash Video (FLV) | .flv | Adobe Inc. | 2003-09 | Proprietary |
Yes |
Yes | Yes | With RTMP | Yes | Yes |
Ogg | .ogv, .ogx |
Xiph.Org | 2003-05 | Open source |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Yes |
As Vorbis comments |
WebM | .webm | 2010-05 | Royalty-free |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Yes | |
RealMedia Variable Bitrate (RMVB) | .rmvb | RealNetworks | 2003 | Proprietary | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
No |
DivX Media Format (DMF) | .divx | DivX, Inc. | 2005-06 | Proprietary | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Support level legend: Full Indirect, lossless Partial Depends on setup None
.mka
for content that is primarily audio or .mks
for subtitles only.[3]/BMDV/index.bdmv
file..mpls
file in the /BDMV/PLAYLIST/
directory..ifo
file.Some features are only supported by a few containers:
.otf
files in the /BDMV/AUXDATA/
directory..ifo
file. Matroska has been planning to support interactive menus as part of a draft specification since 2004.[42].ssif
files in the /BDMV/STREAM/SSIF/
directory and require a respective base .m2ts
file. Digital 3D in QTFF and ASF is possible, but not standard. MP4 only supports Digital 3D at the video format level.[44]Some common multimedia file formats are not completely distinct container formats. Some are containers for specific audio and video coding formats, such as WebM, a subset of Matroska. Some are combinations of common container formats and audio and video coding profiles, such as AVCHD and DivX formats. Although sometimes compared to DivX products, Xvid is neither a container format nor a video format, it is a software library that encodes video using specific coding profiles of the common MPEG-4 ASP video format. Those types of restrictions are intended to simplify the construction of multimedia recorders and players.
Format | Type | Initial release | License |
MKV | MP4 |
QTFF |
ASF |
AVI |
MXF | PS, TS |
3GP, 3G2 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
MPEG-H HEVC (H.265) | Lossy or lossless | 2013-06 | Patent encumbered |
Yes |
Yes | Yes |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
Yes | Yes |
MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) | Lossy or lossless | 2004-08 | Patent encumbered |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Yes | Yes |
Yes |
AV1 | Lossy or lossless | 2018-03 | Patent claims | Beta |
Yes | No | No | No | No | Planned | No |
VP9 | Lossy or lossless | 2013-06 | Patent claims | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
VP8 | Lossy or lossless | 2008-09 | Patent claims | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Dirac | Lossy or lossless | 2008-03 | Patent-free |
VCM |
No | Yes | No | Needs Dirac |
No | Private | No |
MVC | Stereoscopic | 2009-05 | Patent encumbered | Yes |
No | No | No | No | No |
No | Yes |
MPEG-1 Video | Lossy | 1993-08 | Expired patents |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
MPEG-2 Video | Lossy | 1996-05 | Expired patents | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
MPEG-4 Visual | Lossy | 1999-12 | Patent encumbered |
Yes | Yes | First edition | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Microsoft MPEG4 V2 | Lossy | 2003 | Patent encumbered, proprietary | Yes | Not standard | Not standard | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
VC-1 | Lossy | 2006-02 | Patent encumbered |
VCM |
Yes |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
H.263 | Lossy | 1996-03 | Patent encumbered |
No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Theora | Lossy | 2004-06 | Free license |
Yes | No | No | No | Needs ffdshow | No | No | No |
Cinepak | Lossy | 1991 | Proprietary | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
Sorenson | Lossy | 1998-03 | Proprietary | Yes | No | Versions 1 and 3 | No | Version 1 | No | No | No |
RealVideo | Lossy | 1997-02 | Proprietary | RV10, RV20, RV30, RV40 | RV60 | No | No | Not standard | No | No | No |
VP6 | Lossy | 2003-05 | Proprietary | No | No | No | No | Needs VP6 |
No | No | No |
DV | Intra-frame | 1995 | Proprietary | VCM |
DVCPRO HD | DV 25 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
No | No |
M-JPEG | Intra-frame | 1994-05 | Expired patents |
VCM |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
MJ2 | Intra-frame | 2003-12 | Patent encumbered |
No | Yes | No | No | Not standard | Yes | No | No |
Apple ProRes | Intra-frame | 2007-04 | Proprietary | No | No | Yes |
No | No | Yes |
No | No |
HuffYUV | Lossless | 2000 | Open source | VCM |
No | No | No | Needs HuffYUV |
No | No | No |
YCbCr |
Not compressed | 1982 | Patent-free | Yes | SheerVideo | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
No | No |
Other | Other | — | Varies | — | — | DVC Pro 50, Photo JPEG, Graphics, QuickTime Animation | — | Indeo | — | JPEG 2000, TICO | — |
Support level legend: Full Indirect, lossless Partial Depends on setup None
Some containers only support a restricted set of video formats:
Format | Type | Initial release | License |
MKV | MP4 |
QTFF |
ASF |
AVI |
MXF | PS, TS |
3GP | 3G2 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AAC | Lossy | 1997-12 | Royalties on codecs |
Yes | Yes | Yes | AAC-LC, HE-AAC[86] | AAC-LC, HE-AAC |
Yes | Private | AAC-LC, HE-AAC | AAC-LC, HE-AAC v1 |
MP3 | Lossy | 1991-12 | Expired patents |
Yes | Yes | MPEG-1 Audio | Yes | Yes |
Yes | Yes | No | No |
AC-3 | Lossy | 1991-02 | Expired patents | Yes | Yes |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Private | No | No |
E-AC-3 | Lossy | 2005-02 | Patent encumbered | QuickTime |
Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
DTS | Lossy | 1993-06 | Proprietary | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Private | No | No |
WMA | Lossy | 1999-08 | Proprietary |
ACM |
No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Opus | Lossy | 2012-09 | Royalty-free | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
Vorbis | Lossy | 2000-05 | Open source[92] | Yes | Private | No | No | Tricky |
No | No | No | No |
MP2 | Lossy | 1991-12 | Patent-free |
Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
MP1 | Lossy | 1991-12 | Expired patents | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
QDesign Music 1 and 2 | Lossy | 1998 | Proprietary | QuickTime |
No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
ATRAC3 | Lossy | 2000-09 | Proprietary | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
FLAC | Lossless | 2001-07 | Open source | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
ALAC | Lossless | 2004-04 | Open source | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
WMA Lossless | Lossless | 2003-01 | Proprietary |
ACM |
No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
DTS-HD | Lossless | 2011-08 | Proprietary | Yes | Yes |
Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Dolby TrueHD | Lossless | 2006-04 | Proprietary | Mature |
Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
MLP | Lossless | 1999-03 | Proprietary | No | Yes |
No | No | No | No | Private | No | No |
ALS | Lossless | 2006-03 | Patent encumbered | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
SLS | Lossless | 2006-06 | Patent encumbered | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
LPCM | Not compressed | 1979 | Patent-free |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Private | No | No |
A-law PCM | Not compressed | 1972-12 | Expired patents |
ACM |
No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
μ-law PCM | Not compressed | 1972-12 | Expired patents |
ACM |
No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
IEEE floating-point PCM | Not compressed | ≥1985 | Patent-free |
Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Microsoft ADPCM | Not compressed | 1992-05 | Proprietary | ACM |
No | Yes | Yes |
Yes | No | No | No | No |
DV Audio | Not compressed | 1995 | Proprietary | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
No | No | No |
AMR | Speech | 1999-06 | Patent encumbered | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | AMR-NB, AMR-WB |
G.728 | Speech | 1992-09 | Expired patents | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Speex | Speech | 2003-03 | Open source |
ACM |
No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
QCELP | Speech | 1994 | Proprietary | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | 13K |
Other | Other | — | Varies | Musepack, WavPack, TTA, any format supported by ACM | — | IMA 4:1, non-IEEE floating-point PCM, integer PCM | Microsoft GSM 6.10 | G.721, G.722, G.723, G.726, G.729a, CVSD, ATRAC1, Dolby AC-2 | — | — | EVS | EVRC, EVRC-B, EVRC-WB, SMV, VMR-WB |
Obsolete | Other | — | Varies | — | — | MACE 3:1, MACE 6:1 | — | Truespeech, many others | — | — | — | — |
Support level legend: Full Indirect, lossless Partial Depends on setup None
Some containers only support a restricted set of audio formats:
Audio-only content can sometimes be placed in a simpler audio-only container, such as Native FLAC for FLAC[103] and ADTS for AAC.
Format | Type | Initial release | License |
MKV |
MP4 | QTFF |
ASF |
AVI |
MXF |
PS, TS |
3GP, 3G2 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SubRip |
Formatted text | 2000-03 | Open source | Yes |
As TTXT |
As TTXT |
As SAMI |
Needs alterations |
As SMPTE-TT | No | As TTXT |
WebVTT | Formatted text | 2010-08 | Open source | Yes |
Yes |
As TTXT |
No | No | As SMPTE-TT | No | As TTXT |
ASS, SSA | Formatted text | 1996 | Open source | Yes |
No | No | No | Needs alterations |
As SMPTE-TT | No | No |
TTXT |
XML | 2006-04 | Patent encumbered | No |
Yes | Yes |
No | No | No | No | Yes |
USF | XML | 2002-11 | Proprietary | Planned | No | No | No | Needs alterations | No | No | No |
SAMI | HTML | 1998-06 | Proprietary | No | No | No | Yes | Needs alterations | As SMPTE-TT | No | No |
VobSub | Picture | 2001 | Patent encumbered | Mature |
Yes | Not standard | No | Needs alterations | No | No | No |
PGS |
Picture | 2006-03 | Patent encumbered | Mature |
As VobSub |
No | No | No | No | No | No |
DVB-SUB |
Picture | 1997-09 | Patent encumbered | Mature |
No | No | No | No | Yes |
Yes | No |
Ogg Kate |
Picture or formatted text | 2008-03 | Open source | Mature |
No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
TextST |
Text stream | 2006-03 | Patent encumbered | Beta | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
MicroDVD | Plain text | 2000-03 | Proprietary | No | No | No | No | Needs alterations | No | No | No |
Other | Other | — | Varies | Generic bitmap images, generic plain text |
BIFS | Quicktime SMIL, EIA-608, CTA-708 | — | XSUB |
SMPTE-TT, EBU-TT |
CTA-708 | — |
Support level legend: Full Indirect, lossless Partial, lossy Depends on setup None
Some containers only support a restricted set of subtitle formats:
Converting image subtitles to text formats is possible using third-party tools[127] but relies on optical character recognition, which is not perfectly accurate and can at best extract basic formatting. Conversion of text to images is possible while preserving content and style. Round-trip format conversion between text formats may not be possible without losing some formatting features.
Multimedia containers interleave data in media streams to enable efficient playback using fewer computational resources, such as time spent reading from the storage drive, memory needed to buffer selected media streams, and time spent decoding when seeking to a different position in time. In this sense, muxing overhead is the control information added by the container to carry interleaved streams. A smaller overhead results in a smaller file when carrying the same streams with the same data. Overhead is affected by the total number of packets and by the size of stream packet headers. In high bitrate encodings, the content payload is usually large enough to make the overhead data relatively insignificant, but in low bitrate encodings, the inefficiency of the overhead can significantly affect the resulting file size if the container uses large stream packet headers or a large number of packets.
In general, Matroska[128] requires the least overhead, followed by MP4, AVI and Ogg.[129]
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