Unit-IV
Sound
In-camera Editing and File Formats File Formats
Video File Formats
• A video file format is a type of file format for storing digital video
data on a computer system.
• Video is almost always stored in compressed form to reduce the file
size.
• A normal video file in a digital format is made up of two parts, a
“codec” and a “container”.
• A “codec” is used to compress and decompress a video file, as there
are times where video files are too large and may cause difficulty
when trying to download or play the file.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• Some examples of “codecs” are FFMpeg, DivX, XviD, and x264.
• A “container” is a collection of files that stores information about
the digital file.
• It simply means there is a combination of both audio and video
data in a single file to allow for simultaneous audio-with-video
playback.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• AVI – Audio Video Interleave
• Developed by Microsoft and introduced to the public in
November 1992.
• AVI format is one of the oldest video formats.
• It is so universally accepted.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• AVI files are able to run on Windows, Macintosh, Linux; is also
supported by popular web browsers.
• AVI files stores data that can be encoded in a number of different
codec’s, although most commonly with M-JPEG or DivX codecs.
• This means that all AVI files, while they may look similar on the
outside, differ substantially from one another on the inside.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• FLV (Flash Video Format)
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• FLV files are videos that are encoded by Adobe Flash software.
• They can be played via the Adobe Flash Player, web browser
plugins or one of several other programs.
• It has become the most common online video viewing platform
used on the Web today.
• Almost all video sharing sites such as Youtube stream videos in
Flash, practically all browsers support and are compatible with
the Flash Video format and can play the video with ease.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
WMV (Windows Media Video)
• Developed by Microsoft, WMV was originally designed for web
streaming applications, as a competitor to Real Video, but it can
now cater to more specialized content.
• WMV files are the tiniest video files over the Web, as their file
size decreases significantly after compression, which results in
poor video quality.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• One advantage of this small file size is that it is probably the
only video file format that allows users to upload and share
their videos through the e-mail system.
• Windows Media Player is the main application that is used to
play WMV files on all Microsoft’s Windows operating systems,
but there are also WMV players available.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• MOV (Apple QuickTime Movie)
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• Developed by Apple. Inc, the QuickTime file format is a popular
type of video sharing and viewing format amongst Macintosh
users, and is often used on the Web, and for saving movie and
video files.
• In recent years, Apple came up with a newer version called
QuickTime X, currently available on Mac OS X Snow Leopard,
Lion and Mountain Lion.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• MOV files are most commonly opened via the Apple QuickTime
Player for the Macintosh Operating System.
• MOV files can also be played on Windows computers.
• Considered one of the best looking file formats, MOV files are of
high quality and are usually big in file size.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• MP4 (Moving Pictures Expert Group 4)
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• First introduced in 1998, the MPEG-4 video format uses
separate compression for audio and video tracks; video is
compressed with MPEG-4 or H.264 video encoding; and audio is
compressed using AAC compression.
• The MP4 file format is also another great file sharing format for
the Web, MP4 file sizes are relatively small but the quality
remains high even after compression.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• MP4 standard is also becoming more popular than FLV for
online video sharing, as it compatible with both online and
mobile browsers and also supported by the new HTML 5.
• Commonly used for sharing video files on the Web.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• AVCHD – Advanced Video Coding, High Definition
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• The result of a Panasonic and Sony collaboration as a video file
format for digital camcorders, AVCHD is commonly used for
data compressed with the H.264 codec.
• Supports both standard definition and high definition variants.
• Open with: VideoLan,VLC Media Player and Apple QuickTime
Player.
Video File Formats (Contd..)
• MTS is a file extension for an AVCHD (Advanced Video Coding
High Definition) video clip format for high-definition video.
• The MTS file format supports 1080i (a high definition video
format with 1080 horizontal scan lines, interlaced) and 720p
(720 horizontal scan lines, progressive scan, rather than
interlaced) in a relatively small file size.
Audio File Formats
• An audio file format is a file format for storing digital audio data
on a computer system.
• It can be uncompressed, or compressed to reduce the file size,
often using lossy compression.
• The data can be a raw bitstream in an audio coding format, but
it is usually embedded in a container format or an audio data
format with defined storage layer.
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• WAV– Waveform Audio File
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• WAV stands for Waveform Audio File Format (also called Audio
for Windows at some point but not anymore).
• It’s a standard that was developed by Microsoft and IBM back in
1991.
• Many think that WAV files are uncompressed audio files, but
that’s not exactly true.
• WAV is actually just a Windows container for audio formats. This
means that a WAV file can contain compressed audio, but it’s
rarely used for that.
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• AIFF - Audio Interchange File Format
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• Similar to how Microsoft and IBM developed WAV for Windows,
AIFF is a format that was developed by Apple for Mac systems
back in 1988.
• Also similar to WAV files, AIFF files can contain multiple kinds of
audio. For example, there is a compressed version called AIFF-C
and another version called Apple Loops which is used by
GarageBand and Logic Audio — and they all use the same AIFF
extension.
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• MP3 - MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• It was released back in 1993 and quickly became popular,
eventually becoming the most widely used audio format in the
world for music files.
• The main pursuit of MP3 is to cut out all of the sound data that
exists beyond the hearing range of most normal people and to
reduce the quality of sounds that aren’t as easy to hear, and then
to compress all other audio data as efficiently as possible.
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• AAC - Advanced Audio Coding
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
AAC - Advanced Audio Coding
• It was developed in 1997 as the successor to MP3, and while it
did catch on as a popular format to use, it never really overtook
MP3 as the most popular for everyday music and recording.
• It’s the standard audio compression method used by
YouTube, Android, iOS, iTunes, later Nintendo portables, and
later PlayStations.
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• WMA - Windows Media Audio
Audio File Formats (Contd..)
• It was first released in 1999 and has gone through several
evolutions since then, all while keeping the same WMA name
and extension.
• In terms of objective quality, WMA is better than MP3.
• It’s a proprietary format created by Microsoft.
• Not many devices and platforms support it
