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Video: File Formats for Video Computer Files

For a full discussion of player and camcorder formats including VHS and DVD, see Camcorder/Player  Video Formats.

This document gives a general introduction to the world of computer-delivered video formats.  It is assumed that you will be using some sort of computer-based video editing software which gives you some choices.  The most common in Fayette County Public Schools are Pinnacle Studio and Windows Movie Maker, but there are lots of others.

Unlike images, which are almost invariably GIF or JPG format (especially when aimed at the Web), video file formats are not quite so universal.  In addition, since uncompressed video files are quite huge, some compression is almost invariably required. What choices you make will depend on how you intend to use your videos. You have to be willing to experiment!

The formats:

MPEG (.mpg):  This digital video format is very high quality with good compression, and will play natively on either Windows or Mac. There are standard choices for compression, aimed at where your final  project will go - the Web, DVD, etc.

Windows Media (.wmv):  This format is the standard for Windows playback. These files will play on any Windows computer, though you may have to upgrade Windows Media Player (use the "Help" menu for how). Outside of Windows, treat this format as proprietary - Macs and other operating systems will need to install the latest version of Windows Media Player (free from Microsoft) to play these files.

Windows AVI (.avi):  AVI files will play on other platforms with players, but are generally associated with Windows machines. Since AVI depends on the Codecs provided by the operating system, this format should be avoided everywhere except within your computer editing environment.

QuickTime (.mov):  The QuickTime movie format is provided by Apple Computers, and they support it.  It is a very good format (it now uses MPEG-4 as its standard Codec), and a QuickTime player is available for almost any operating system.  However, since the format is proprietary, you must make sure the computer on which you run the video has the player, available from Apple’s website at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/   If you intend to deliver the video via the Web, be sure to supply a link to the Quicktime site on your page.

RealMedia (.rm):  RealMedia provides one of the oldest and most widespread  Web delivery formats - 85% of all web-accessing computers have RealPlayer installed. Many of the tools to code and deliver RealMedia video files are free for download - including RealProducer which encodes other formats to Real, and RealServer Basic which delivers these files more dependably than ordinary links and webservers. Both Pinnacle Systems' most recent programs and Adobe Premier will encode to this format. As with QuickTime, RealPlayer is required for Real files to play on a workstation. RealPlayer Basic is free and available from http://www.real.com. The only downside of using Real is the aggressive nature of their marketing - this can be avoided by a non-default install of RealPlayer.