Multimedia container format

Draft

Definition

• “A container format is a computer file format that can contain various types of data, compressed by means of standardized audio/video codecs. The container file is used to identify and interleave the different data types. Simpler container formats can contain different types of audio codecs, while more advanced container formats can support multiple audio and video streams, subtitles, chapter-information, and meta-data (tags) - along with the synchronization information needed to play back the various streams together.” (Container format (digital), retrieved 15:56, 20 March 2007 (MET))

Usage contexts

• Multimedia animations, in particular of SMIL type, but modern formats (e.g. MPEG-4 include things like avatar animations.
• Video streaming (may include animations)
• Virtual environments made with vector graphics, but include video streams.
• CD Roms (may include all of the above)

Popular Formats

• Flash (Wikipedia - Flash). Adobe
• ASF and older AVI, part of Windows Media (Wikipedia - Windows Media)
• Ogg-Vorbis (Wikipedia Ogg)
• Quicktime (Wikipedia QuickTime). Apple.
• RealAudio (Wikipedia RealAudio)
• MPEG-4 part 14, also called MP4. Read Wikipedia MPEG-4 Part 14.
• WebM - A video format designed to provide a royalty-free, high-quality open video compression format for use with HTML5 video. Read Wikipedia WebM).

Links

• A gentle introduction to video encoding by Mark Pilgrim