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Video Containers, Codecs. The anatomy of a Video File

Downloading Video is getting more and more complex as there are increasingly more formats and more players.  Wrapping your head around it can be a challenge.  To help you out we quickly go over the Anatomy of a Video File

The First thing to know about your File is the File Extension.  Most of the time this will tell you what container your content is in. 

.AVI for audio Video Interleave,

.ASF, .WMV, .WMA for Advanced Streaming Format which was later Rename Windows Media Video / Audio

.MPG for Mpeg

.FLV for Flash Video

.Divx for some Divx files

.Mp4 for Mpeg4 Files

 

In each of these containers are several possible Compression Technologies for Video

AVI, and ASF being the most broad.

AVI can literally contain any type of Compressed Video, Mpeg2, DivX H.264, Windows Media, VC-1, Lagarith, VP6, HUFF, the list goes on and on.

ASF can contain Windows Media 6,7, 8, 9, VC-1, Mpeg2, ISO Mpeg4, Mpeg4v3, Uncompressed, Windows Media Screen, and motion Jpeg.

MPeg can contain Mpeg 1, Mpeg2, or h.264

FLV can contain H264, VP6, or MJPG,

.Divx can contain DivX or Xvid

.MP4 will always contain H.264 Main or Simple profile

 

There is then the audio portion of the file.

AVI can contain any Audio Codec

ASF can contain MP3, WMA 1-9, WMA-Pro, AC3, or uncompressed

Mpeg can contain MP2, Mp3, AC3, or AAC, AAC+  or WMA

FLV can contain Mp3, AAC

.DiVX can contain MP3, AC3, Ogg, or WMA

.MP4 can contain MP3, AC3, or AAC

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