These tables compare features of multimedia container formats, most often used for storing or streaming

digital video Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data. This is in contrast to analog video, which represents moving visual images in the form of analog signals. Digital video comprises ...

digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital signal (signal processing), digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical sampling (signal processing), ...

content. To see which multimedia players support which container format, look at comparison of media players.

General information

In many ways, derived containers are similar to those on which they are based, sometimes extending them, sometimes limiting their capabilities. * QTFF ** ISO BMFF *** MP4 *** 3GPP, 3GPP2 *** F4V * MPEG-PS ** MPEG-TS ***

M2TS .m2ts is a filename extension used for the Blu-ray disc Audio-Video (BDAV) MPEG-2 Transport Stream (M2TS) container file format. It is used for multiplexing audio, video and other streams, such as subtitles. It is based on the MPEG-2 transport st ...

VOB VOB (for video object) is the container format in DVD-Video media. VOB can contain digital video, digital audio, subtitles, DVD menus and navigation contents multiplexed together into a stream form. Files in VOB format may be encrypted. File fo ...

*** EVOB * MCF **

Matroska Matroska (styled Matroška) is a project to create a container format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture, or subtitle tracks in one file. The Matroska Multimedia Container is similar in concept to other containers like ...

***

WebM WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML video and the HTML audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored by ...

RIFF A riff is a short, repeated motif or figure in the melody or accompaniment of a musical composition. Riffs are most often found in rock music, punk, heavy metal music, Latin, funk, and jazz, although classical music is also sometimes based ...

AVI Avi is a given name, usually masculine, often a diminutive of Avram (given name), Avram, Avraham, etc. It is sometimes feminine and a diminutive of the Hebrew spelling of Abigail (name), Abigail. People with the given name include: * Avi (author ...

*** DMF * RM **

RMVB RealMedia Variable Bitrate (RMVB) is a variable bitrate extension of the RealMedia multimedia digital container format developed by RealNetworks. As opposed to the more common RealMedia container, which holds streaming media encoded at a constant b ...

Support level legend: Some features are only supported by a few containers: * Attachments (additional files, such as fonts for subtitles) are only supported in

, MP4 and QTFF.

supports attachments as multiple files in a specific file structure: fonts for subtitles are in .otf files in the /BDMV/AUXDATA/ directory. * Interactive menus are only supported in MP4, QTFF,

, EVO and DMF.

supports interactive menus as multiple files in a specific file structure for encoding DVD content, requiring a companion .ifo file.

has been planning to support interactive menus as part of a draft specification since 2004. *

Digital 3D Digital 3D is a non-specific 3D standard in which films, television shows, and video games are presented and shot in digital 3D technology or later processed in digital post-production to add a 3D effect. One of the first studios to use digital ...

is only supported at the container format level in

, MXF and

(some stereo modes).

supports Digital 3D as multiple files in a specific file structure for encoding stereoscopic video: MVC stereoscopic data is in .ssif files in the /BDMV/STREAM/SSIF/ directory and require a respective base .m2ts file. Digital 3D in QTFF and ASF is possible, but not standard. MP4 only supports Digital 3D at the video format level. Some common multimedia file formats are not completely distinct container formats. Some are containers for specific audio and video coding formats, such as

, a subset of

. Some are combinations of common container formats and audio and video coding profiles, such as

AVCHD AVCHD (Advanced Video Coding High Definition) is a file-based format for the digital recording and playback of high-definition video. It is H.264 and Dolby AC-3 packaged into the MPEG transport stream, with a set of constraints designed around cam ...

and DivX formats. Although sometimes compared to

DivX DIVX (Digital Video Express) is a discontinued digital video format. Created in part by Circuit City, it was an unsuccessful attempt to create an alternative to video rental in the United States. The format's poor reception from consumers resu ...

products, Xvid is neither a container format nor a video format, it is a software library that encodes video using specific coding profiles of the common MPEG-4 ASP video format. Those types of restrictions are intended to simplify the construction of multimedia recorders and players.

Video coding formats support

Support level legend: Some containers only support a restricted set of video formats: * DMF only supports MPEG-4 Visual ASP with DivX profiles. * EVO only supports

MPEG-4 AVC Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and d ...

, MPEG-1 Video,

MPEG-2 Video H.262 or MPEG-2 Part 2 (formally known as ITU-T Recommendation H.262 and ISO/IEC 13818-2, also known as MPEG-2 Video) is a video coding format standardised and jointly maintained by ITU-T Study Group 16 Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and IS ...

and

VC-1 SMPTE 421, informally known as VC-1, is a video coding format. Most of it was initially developed as Microsoft's proprietary video format Windows Media Video 9 in 2003. With some enhancements including the development of a new Advanced Profile, ...

. * F4V only supports

, MPEG-4 Visual and

H.263 H.263 is a video compression standard originally designed as a low-bit-rate compressed format for videotelephony. It was standardized by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) in a project ending in 1995/1996. It is a member of the H.26x fa ...

. * FLV only supports MPEG-4 Visual, VP6,

Sorenson Spark Sorenson Media was an American software company specializing in video encoding technology. Established in December 1995 as Sorenson Vision, the company developed technology which was licensed and ultimately acquired from Utah State University. ...

and Screen Video.

in FLV is possible, but not standard. *

only supports

, MPEG-1 Video,

, MPEG-4 Visual and

. *

Ogg Ogg is a digital multimedia container format designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of digital multimedia. It is maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation and is free and open, unrestricted by software patents. Its name is ...

only supports

Theora Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It was 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 contai ...

, MNG, JNG, PNG and

Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac ( ; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English mathematician and theoretical physicist who is considered to be one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Dirac laid the foundations for both quantum electrodyna ...

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

supports VP9 and

VP8 VP8 is an open format, open and royalty-free Video coding format, video compression format released by On2 Technologies in 2008. Initially released as a Proprietary software, proprietary successor to On2's previous VP7 format, VP8 was released a ...

in Ogg. VLC supports

, MPEG-4 Visual and

in Ogg. *

only supports

RealVideo RealVideo, also spelled as Real Video, is a suite of proprietary format, proprietary video compression formats developed by RealNetworks — the specific format changes with the version. It was first released in 1997 and was at version 15. RealV ...

versions RV30, RV40 and RV60. *

only supports MPEG-1 Video and

. *

only supports VP9,

, and

AV1 AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format initially designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It was developed as a successor to VP9 by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium founded in 2015 tha ...

Audio coding formats support

Support level legend: Some containers only support a restricted set of audio formats: * DMF only supports

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

, AC-3, DTS and

LPCM Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the ampli ...

. * EVO only supports

, AC-3, E-AC-3, DTS,

MP2 MP2 or MP-2 may refer to: Aviation * The second terminal of Marseille Provence Airport * Chyetverikov ARK-3 flying-boat Firearms * German Army designation for the Uzi * MP-2 machine pistol Science * MP 2, an abbreviation for a zone during t ...

MP1 MPEG-1 Audio Layer I, commonly abbreviated to MP1, is a lossy audio codec and one of three audio formats included in the MPEG-1 standard. For files only containing MP1 audio, the file extension .mp1 is used. It is a deliberately simplified vers ...

DTS-HD DTS-HD Master Audio (DTS-HD MA; known as DTS++ before 2004) is a multi-channel, lossless audio codec developed by DTS as an extension of the lossy DTS Coherent Acoustics codec (DTS CA; usually itself referred to as just DTS). Rather than being ...

Dolby TrueHD Dolby TrueHD is a lossless, multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories for home video, used principally in Blu-ray Disc and compatible hardware. Dolby TrueHD, along with Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) and Dolby AC-4, is one of th ...

, MLP and

. * F4V only supports

AAC AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Airborne aircraft carrier, a type of aircraft * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New ...

and

. * FLV only supports

A-law An A-law algorithm is a standard companding algorithm, used in European 8-bit PCM digital communications systems to optimize, i.e. modify, the dynamic range of an analog signal for digitizing. It is one of the two companding algorithms in the ...

PCM Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to Digital signal (signal processing), digitally represent analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio application ...

, μ-law

Speex {{More citations needed, date=May 2025 The Speex project is an attempt to create a free software speech codec, unencumbered by patent restrictions. Speex is licensed under the BSD License and is used with the Xiph.org Foundation's Ogg containe ...

, Asao and SWF

ADPCM Adaptive differential pulse-code modulation (ADPCM) is a variant of differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM) that varies the size of the quantization step, to allow further reduction of the required data bandwidth for a given signal-to-noise rati ...

. *

only supports AC-3, E-AC-3, DTS,

and

. *

only supports

Opus Opus (: opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera ...

Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder ( codec) for lossy audio compression, libvorbis. Vorbis is most comm ...

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software ...

, μ-law

IEEE floating-point The IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic (IEEE 754) is a technical standard for floating-point arithmetic originally established in 1985 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The standard addressed many proble ...

PCM,

and CELT. OGMtools supports

and AC-3 in Ogg. *

only supports AC-3,

ATRAC3 Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC) is a family of proprietary audio compression algorithms developed by Sony. MiniDisc was the first commercial product to incorporate ATRAC, in 1992. ATRAC allowed a relatively small disc like MiniDisc to ...

, G.728,

AAC-LC Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. It was developed by Dolby, AT&T, Fraunhofer and Sony, originally as part of the MPEG-2 specification but later improved under MPEG-4.ISO (2006ISO/IEC 13 ...

, HE-AAC v1, IS-54,

Cook Codec The cook codec is a lossy audio compression codec developed by RealNetworks. It is also known as Cooker, Gecko, RealAudio G2, and RealAudio 8 low bitrate (RA8LBR). Introduced in 1998, the cook codec was the first audio codec developed by RealNe ...

, Sipro Lab,

ACELP Algebraic code-excited linear prediction (ACELP) is a speech coding algorithm in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to a linear prediction filter. It is a linear predictive coding (LPC) algorithm that is based on the cod ...

-NET and RealAudio Lossless. *

only supports

directly. It also supports AC-3, DTS, MLP and

as private streams. *

only supports

and

. Audio-only content can sometimes be placed in a simpler audio-only container, such as Native FLAC for

and ADTS for

Subtitle formats support

Support level legend: Some containers only support a restricted set of subtitle formats: * DMF only supports XSUB. * EVO only supports

HD DVD HD DVD (short for High Density Digital Versatile Disc) is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and playback of high-definition video.

. * F4V only supports TTXT.

SubRip SubRip is a free software program for Microsoft Windows which extracts subtitles and their timings from various video formats to a text file. It is released under the GNU GPL. Its subtitle format's file extension is .srt and is widely supported ...

and WebVTT can be converted losslessly to TTXT. * FLV only supports loading subtitles with

ActionScript ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (later acquired by Adobe). It is influenced by HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard. It is now an implementation of ECMAScript (mean ...

, but this functionality may be restricted to the official

Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is a discontinuedExcept in China, where it continues to be used, as well as Harman for enterprise users. computer program for viewing multimedia ...

. WebVTT can be converted losslessly to ActionScript. *

only supports

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

. VobSub can be partially converted to PGS using tools that are not officially related to the container format. *

only supports Ogg Kate and CMML.

can be converted losslessly to Ogg Kate. Ogg Writ is well supported in Ogg in common tools such as OGMtools and VLC, but there's no intention to turn its draft into a fully supported specification. Xiph recommends using Kate for subtitles.

MicroDVD MicroDVD is a subtitle file format for digital video. Its name is derived from the MicroDVD Player, a media player application designed to play DVD videos along with subtitles, originally developed by Tiamat Software. The application was first re ...

can be converted to Ogg Writ. *

only supports RealText.

SMIL SMIL or Smil may refer to: *SMIL (computer), a Swedish first-generation computer *Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, a www-standard markup language for multimedia presentations, including playlists and animated SVGs *Vaclav Smil (born 194 ...

can be partially converted to RealText. *

only supports VobSub. can be partially converted to VobSub using tools that are not officially related to the container format. *

only supports WebVTT.

can be converted losslessly to WebVTT. Converting image subtitles to text formats is possible using third-party tools but relies on

optical character recognition Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronics, electronic or machine, mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo ...

, which is not perfectly accurate and can at best extract basic formatting. Conversion of text to images is possible while preserving content and style.

Round-trip format conversion The term round-trip is used in document conversion particularly involving markup languages such as XML and SGML. Round-tripping consists of converting a document in format A (docA) to one in format B (docB) and then back again to format A (docA� ...

between text formats may not be possible without losing some formatting features.

Overhead

Multimedia

containers A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

interleave data in media streams to enable efficient playback using fewer computational resources, such as time spent reading from the storage drive, memory needed to buffer selected media streams, and time spent decoding when seeking to a different position in time. In this sense,

muxing In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource— ...

overhead is the control information added by the container to carry interleaved streams. A smaller overhead results in a smaller file when carrying the same streams with the same data. Overhead is affected by the total number of packets and by the size of stream packet headers. In high bitrate encodings, the content payload is usually large enough to make the overhead data relatively insignificant, but in low bitrate encodings, the inefficiency of the overhead can significantly affect the resulting file size if the container uses large stream packet headers or a large number of packets. In general,

requires the least overhead, followed by MP4,

and

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Comparison Of Container Formats Video container Formats *Comparison Video container

General information

Video coding formats support

Audio coding formats support

Subtitle formats support

Overhead

See also

Notes

References