MP4
Definition
- “MPEG-4 Part 14, formally ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003, is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital audio and digital video streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images. Like most modern container formats, MPEG-4 Part 14 allows streaming over the Internet. The official filename extension for MPEG-4 Part 14 files is .mp4, thus the container format is often referred to simply as MP4. Devices that play .mp4 files are referred to as MP4 players.” (Wikipedia MPEG-4 Part 14, retrieved 16:16, 20 March 2007 (MET))
See also: Video streaming, Video editing, videoconferencing, podcasting, Multimedia container format, MP4, etc.
Technology
Media Players
Most modern media players can play MP4 formats, however finding converting tools for MP4 is not easy - Daniel K. Schneider 13:44, 18 June 2007 (MEST).
- Commercial (usually free)
- QuickTime / iTunes (Apple Inc.)
- RealPlayer
- Zune, the new Microsoft digital audio player, online music store, and client software (nov 2006)
- Winamp, used to be or still is a most popular MP3 player. (Wikipedia entry)
- Free and open source
- FFMpeg (Wikipedia entry) is a collection of free software hat can record, convert and stream digital audio and video.
- Mplayer (Wikipedia entry). Multiplatform.
- xine is a multimedia playback engine for Unix-like operating systems that supports almost any format. (Wikipedia entry).
Video editing software
- See video editing
Encoders and Converters
Finding e.g. a simple MP4 to MPEG-2 converter is a real pain, since searching the Internet leads to confusing commercial index web sites.
- MediaCoder Free
- Encoder (a sister project of MPlayer).
- SUPER, Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer. (see also the Wikipedia article).
(more needed here ....)
Hints
MP4 videos from a Nokia N73 to YouTube
YouTube only supports .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG file formats (other details, i.e. codecs supported are not clear to me).
I used the free SUPER Program (see link above).
- Output = WMV
- Output Video codec = VMV8 or MS-MPEG3-v2 (for WMV7 I got an error)
- Audio Codec = MP3
- Video/Audio: I used the defaults
Note: Super will by default write the output file to the root of the c:\ directory. Right-click anywhere in the Window to access the menu (you can fix output location there).