#PC Video File Formats
5 messages in this thread
Can someone tell me where I can find a description of the different
file formats for video, such as AVI, MOV, and MPG?
What I am interested in is knowing whether they all have the same
capability in terms of video and audio resolution and frame rate.
I am confused about why there are so many formats.
Here is what I think I know so far:
AVI = Microsoft Audio/Video Interleaved
MOV = Quicktime. Mac and IBM?
MPG = MPEG. Is this a standard file format or just a compression standard?
FLC = Animation only?
FLI = ?
JPG = JPEG. Is this strictly still pictures or does the file format also
support Motion JPEG?
Are there others?
I also understand that the standard PC video resolutions are:
160×120
320×240
640×480
Is it possible to use a resolution somewhere in between 320×240 and
640×480?
Thanks in advance for any help. I think this forum is going to be great!
Will,
As of right now we don't have that sort of information in the libraries,
however it is something we hope to offer. Folks will speak up if they are
aware of any current online sources for the information you need. Welcome
to the forum!
-John
Will,
(Unfortunately) MPEG is both a compression type and a stream format. The
stream is usually just dumped into a file and, thus, becomes a file format,
too.
The standard for Motion JPEG is somewhat non-existent. JPEG just defines what
each still should look like. The act of creating a Motion JPEG file usually
involves placing the JPEG frames in file format that can accomodate the frames
and add a synchronized audio track. There is an official AVI definition for
JPEG in an AVI file (written by C-Cube and endorsed by Microsoft). Similarly,
there is a way of accomodating Motion JPEG (as a video track) in QuickTime
movies.
You are correct about your supposition that QuickTime MOV files work the same
on the Mac as they do in IBM compatibles ASSUMING that the codec for the video
encoding algorithm is available on both platforms (Indeo and CinePak both are).
Oliver Tavakoli
Video Trilogy, Inc.
You probably don't want to find, purchase and read all the actual file
specifications for those formats. They're quite complicated, and you'd be
better off searching for magazines that contain summaries of these
technologies. Certainly most Mac and PC magazines have covered them in depth
in recent years. Why are there so many formats? Some of them are promoted by
private parties with vested interest in recruiting people to their platform and
technology (AVI) while others are promoted by public, non-commercial entities,
or some are in-between. They have different intentions, too, or at least they
started out that way. For example, today you see advanced MPEG compression
used in direct satellite systems, while QuickTime is actually a general
database format for storing any time-dependent data, while AVI is certainly
optimized for CDROM playback on PCs.
>>> Why are there so many formats? Some of them are promoted by private
parties with vested interest in recruiting people to their platform and
technology (AVI) while others are promoted by public, non-commercial entities,
or some are in-between. <<<
Gee, John, notably absent from your list of private formats is Quicktime. This
isn't a subtle form of hypocritcal Bill Bashing is it? <grin>
Patrick