MP4

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Draft

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))

Technology

Media Players

Most modern media players can play MP4 formats, e.g.

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).

Some Video editing software

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.

(more needed here ....)

Links