Comparison of container formats - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This table compares features of container formats. To see which multimedia players support which container format, look at comparison of media players

Comparison of media players

The following comparison of video players compares general and technical information for notable software media player programs.For the purpose of this comparison, "video players" are defined as any media player which can play video, even if it can also play audio files.-General:-Operating system...

Information

Name and file extension, if different	Proprietor/Developer	License	Support for B-frames	Variable bit rate audio	Variable frame rate Variable frame rate Variable frame rate is a term in video compression for a feature supported by some container formats which allows for the frame rate to change actively during video playback, or to drop the idea of frame rate completely and set individual timecode for each frame...	Chapter Chapter Chapter, as an organizational class title, may refer to:* A main division of a piece of writing or document, as a Chapter and a chapter in legislation... s	Captions (Subtitles)	Video formats supported	Audio format Audio format An audio format is a medium for storing sound and music. The term is applied to both the physical recording media and the recording formats of the audio content – in computer science it is often limited to the audio file format, but its wider use usually refers to the physical method used to... s supported	Metadata Metadata The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at... /Tag Tag (metadata) In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information . This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching... s supported	Menu Support (like DVD DVD A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions.... )	Streaming Streaming media Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather... Support	Attachment Support	3D Support (codec)	3D Support at container level	Supported by hardware players
3GP 3GP 3GP is a multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project for 3G UMTS multimedia services. It is used on 3G mobile phones but can also be played on some 2G and 4G phones....	3GPP 3GPP The 3rd Generation Partnership Project is a collaboration between groups of telecommunications associations, known as the Organizational Partners...
3G2 3GP 3GP is a multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project for 3G UMTS multimedia services. It is used on 3G mobile phones but can also be played on some 2G and 4G phones....	3GPP2
Advanced Systems Format Advanced Systems Format Advanced Systems Format is Microsoft's proprietary digital audio/digital video container format, especially meant for streaming media... (.asf, .wma, .wmv)	Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...	Proprietary, patent encumbered
AVI Audio Video Interleave Audio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...	Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...	?								through RIFF chunks
DivX Media Format (.divx)	DivX, Inc. DivX, Inc. DivX, Inc. , based in San Diego, California, now part of Sonic Solutions, a division of Rovi, was the corporation behind the MPEG-4 Part 2-based codec, DivX. The company's codec has been downloaded over 240 million times since January 2003...	?
EVO Enhanced VOB An EVO file is a container format contained in HD DVD video media. It contains the actual video, audio, subtitle and menu contents in stream form. It is an extension to VOB, which is an extension to MPEG program stream...	MPEG	Patent encumbered
F4V (Flash Video)	Adobe Systems Adobe Systems Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...	Patent encumbered
FLV (Flash Video)	Adobe Systems Adobe Systems Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...	Patent encumbered
Matroska Matroska The Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks in one file. It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows... (.mkv, .mk3d, .mka, .mks)	CoreCodec, Inc.	Freely licensed						Virtually anything	Virtually anything		under development by CoreCodec
MCF Multimedia Container Format Multimedia Container Format, abbreviated MCF, is an unfinished container format specification and a predecessor of Matroska. The project has been abandoned since early 2004, but many of its innovative features found their way into Matroska.-History:...	Community	BSD-style license for specs, GNU for tools
MP4 MPEG-4 Part 14 MPEG-4 Part 14 or MP4 is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital video and digital audio streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images...	MPEG	Patent encumbered
MPEG Video File (.mpg, .mpeg)	MPEG	Patent encumbered
MPEG program stream PS (.ps)	MPEG	Patent encumbered
MPEG transport stream TS (.ts)	MPEG	Patent encumbered
BDAV MPEG-2 transport stream (.m2ts .m2ts M2TS is a filename extension used for the Blu-ray Disc Audio-Video MPEG-2 Transport Stream container file format. It is used for multiplexing audio, video and other streams. It is based on the MPEG-2 transport stream container... )	Blu-ray Disc Association Blu-ray Disc Association The Blu-ray Disc Association is the industry consortium that develops and licenses Blu-ray Disc technology and is responsible for establishing format standards and promoting business opportunities for Blu-ray Disc...	Proprietary
MXF MXF Material eXchange Format is a container format for professional digital video and audio media defined by a set of SMPTE standards.- A brief summary of MXF :...	SMPTE	?						Virtually anything	Virtually anything
Ogg Ogg Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...	Xiph.org	Patent-free, Free software Free software Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do... implementations available
Quicktime QuickTime File Format QuickTime File Format is a computer file format used natively by the QuickTime framework.- Design :The format specifies a multimedia container file that contains one or more tracks, each of which stores a particular type of data: audio, video, effects, or text... (.mov, .qt)	Apple Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...	Proprietary
RMVB RMVB RealMedia Variable Bitrate is a variable bitrate extension of the RealMedia multimedia container format developed by RealNetworks....	RealNetworks RealNetworks RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of Internet media delivery software and services based in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The company is the creator of RealAudio, a compressed audio format; RealVideo, a compressed video format; RealPlayer, a media player; RealDownloader, a download...	Proprietary
VOB VOB A VOB file is a container format in DVD-Video media. VOB can contain video, audio, subtitle, menu and navigation contents multiplexed together into a stream form. VOB is based on the MPEG program stream format, but with additional limitations and specifications in the private streams... +IFO IFO IFO is a type of DVD-Video file that stores information about chapters, subtitles and audio tracks.An IFO file is one of three types of files that are used on DVDs. It contains important navigational information, such as where a video chapter begins, and where audio and subtitle streams exist...	DVD Forum DVD Forum The DVD Forum is an international organization composed of hardware, software, media and content companies that use and develop the DVD and formerly HD DVD formats...	Proprietary
WebM WebM WebM is an audio-video format designed to provide a royalty-free, open video compression format for use with HTML5 video. The project's development is sponsored by Google....	WebM Project	perpetual license grant to patents
	Proprietor/Developer	License	Support for B-frames	Variable bit rate audio	Variable frame rate Variable frame rate Variable frame rate is a term in video compression for a feature supported by some container formats which allows for the frame rate to change actively during video playback, or to drop the idea of frame rate completely and set individual timecode for each frame...	Chapter Chapter Chapter, as an organizational class title, may refer to:* A main division of a piece of writing or document, as a Chapter and a chapter in legislation... s	Captions (Subtitles)	Video formats supported	Audio formats supported	Metadata/Tags supported	Menu Support (like DVD DVD A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions.... )	Streaming Streaming media Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather... Support	Attachment Support	3D Support (codec)	3D Support at container level	Supported by hardware players

Audio formats supported

Lossy compression								Lossless compression
MP3 MP3 MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...	WMA Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...	RealAudio RealAudio RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is...	Vorbis Vorbis Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression...	Musepack Musepack Musepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 kbit/s...	AAC Advanced Audio Coding Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....	AC-3 Dolby Digital Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...	DTS	PCM Pulse-code modulation Pulse-code modulation is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form for digital audio in computers and various Blu-ray, Compact Disc and DVD formats, as well as other uses such as digital telephone systems...	APE Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio is a file format for audio data compression. Being a lossless format, Monkey's Audio does not discard data during the process of encoding, unlike lossy compression methods such as AAC, MP3, Vorbis and Musepack....	FLAC FLAC FLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost...	ALAC Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless (also known as ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), or ALE (Apple Lossless Encoder) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music. After initially being proprietary for many years, in late 2011 Apple open sourced...	WavPack WavPack WavPack is a free, open source lossless audio compression format developed by David Bryant.-Features:WavPack compression can compress 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit fixed-point, and 32-bit floating point audio files in the .WAV file format. It also supports surround sound streams and high frequency...	MLP / Dolby TrueHD MLP MLP may stand for:Malta Labour PartyMarschollek, Lautenschläger und Partner, a large German financial services corporationMary-Louise Parker, an American actressMaster limited partnership*Memory Level Parallelism...	DTS-HD
QuickTime QuickTime File Format QuickTime File Format is a computer file format used natively by the QuickTime framework.- Design :The format specifies a multimedia container file that contains one or more tracks, each of which stores a particular type of data: audio, video, effects, or text...
AVI Audio Video Interleave Audio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...				not officially
Matroska Matroska The Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks in one file. It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows...
MP4 MPEG-4 Part 14 MPEG-4 Part 14 or MP4 is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital video and digital audio streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images...				not officially
MXF
Ogg Ogg Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...

Video formats supported

	MPEG-1	MPEG-2 H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 H.262 or MPEG-2 Part 2 is a digital video compression and encoding standard developed and maintained jointly by ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group and ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group . It is the second part of the ISO/IEC MPEG-2 standard...	MPEG-4 (A)SP MPEG-4 Part 2 MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standards. It is a discrete cosine transform compression standard, similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2...	H.264/MPEG-4 AVC H.264/MPEG-4 AVC H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC is a standard for video compression, and is currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of high definition video...	VC-1/WMV Windows Media Video 'Windows Media Video is a video compression format for several proprietary codecs developed by Microsoft. The original video format, known as WMV, was originally designed for Internet streaming applications, as a competitor to RealVideo. The other formats, such as WMV Screen and WMV Image, cater...	RealVideo RealVideo RealVideo is a suite of proprietary video compression formats developed by RealNetworks – the specific format changes with the version. It was first released in 1997 and is at version 10. RealVideo is supported on many platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and several mobile...	Theora Theora Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It is developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg container....	Microsoft MPEG4 V2	VP8 VP8 VP8 is an open video compression format released by Google, originally created by On2 Technologies.After purchasing On2 Technologies in early 2010, Google has provided an irrevocable patent promise for underlying patents for the VP8 format, and released a bitstream format specification under a...	MVC Multiview Video Coding Multiview Video Coding is an amendment to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard developed with joint efforts by MPEG/VCEG that enables efficient encoding of sequences captured simultaneously from multiple cameras using a single video stream....
QuickTime QuickTime File Format QuickTime File Format is a computer file format used natively by the QuickTime framework.- Design :The format specifies a multimedia container file that contains one or more tracks, each of which stores a particular type of data: audio, video, effects, or text...
AVI Audio Video Interleave Audio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...
OGM
Matroska Matroska The Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks in one file. It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows...
MP4 MPEG-4 Part 14 MPEG-4 Part 14 or MP4 is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital video and digital audio streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images...
MXF

Caption (Subtitle) formats supported

	QuickTime QuickTime File Format QuickTime File Format is a computer file format used natively by the QuickTime framework.- Design :The format specifies a multimedia container file that contains one or more tracks, each of which stores a particular type of data: audio, video, effects, or text...	AVI Audio Video Interleave Audio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...	OGM	Matroska Matroska The Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks in one file. It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows...	MP4 MPEG-4 Part 14 MPEG-4 Part 14 or MP4 is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital video and digital audio streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images...	MXF
AQTitle
JACOSub http://unicorn.us.com/jacosub/jscripts.html
MicroDVD MicroDVD MicroDVD is a subtitle file format for digital video. Its name is derived from a media player application designed to play DVD videos along with subtitles, originally developed by Tiamat Software. The application was first released in 2000 but development ended in 2001...
MPEG-4 Timed Text MPEG-4 Part 17 MPEG-4 Part 17, or MPEG-4 Timed Text, or MPEG-4 Streaming text format is the text based subtitle format for MPEG-4, published as ISO/IEC 14496-17 in 2006...
MPSub MPlayer MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
Ogg Kate
Ogg Writ Ogg Writ Ogg Writ is a text-phrase codec used with the Ogg encapsulation format.It was initially designed to provide subtitles for Ogg Theora videos, but is also useful for song lyrics with Ogg FLAC or Vorbis, transcripts with Ogg Speex, or any other place where it is useful to combine text with audio or...
Phoenix Subtitle
PowerDivX
RealText http://service.real.com/help/library/guides/realtext/realtext.htm
SAMI SAMI SAMI is a Microsoft accessibility initiative released in 1998. The structured markup language is designed to simplify creating captions for media playback on a PC, i.e. not for broadcast purposes....
Structured Subtitle Format
SubRip SubRip SubRip is a software program for Windows which "rips" subtitles and their timings from video. It is free software, released under the GNU GPL...
Gloss Subtitle
(Advanced) SubStation Alpha SubStation Alpha SubStation Alpha , abbreviated SSA, is a subtitle file format created by CS Low that allows for more advanced subtitles than the conventional SRT and similar formats. This format can be rendered with VSFilter in conjunction with a DirectShow-aware video player , or MPlayer with the SSA/ASS library...
SubViewer SubViewer SubViewer is a utility for adding and synchronizing subtitles to video content. It was created by David Dolinski in 1999, and offered for download on his personal website, . A friend of David Dolinski created, at the same time, software to extract subtitles from DVD named SubRip.SubViewer became...
Universal Subtitle Format Universal Subtitle Format Universal Subtitle Format is a CoreCodec project to create a clean, documented, powerful and easy to use subtitle file format. It is based on XML for some of the following reasons: flexibility, unicode support, a hierarchical system, and ease of administration.USF subtitles are usually used in...
VobSub VSFilter DirectVobSub formerly known as VSFilter is a software add-on for Microsoft Windows that is able to read external subtitle files and superimposes them on a playing video file....
XSUB

Information

Audio formats supported

Video formats supported

Caption (Subtitle) formats supported

See also