Web Video File Formats
Jul/091
File formats containing video are called video formats. These file formats now in the time of web video are usually container formats. A container format is essentially a sequence of packets containing data like video frames and audio samples. This sequence of packets can be regarded as a stream, thus many of the modern container file formats can be used for streaming video. Besides the streamable packet structure these container formats provide another great benefit – codec abstraction. A codec (‘coder-decoder’) is a algorithm that allows video information to be stored digitally in a more efficient manner. With this codec abstraction container formats are capable of “outliving” the initial codec they were intended to work with and achieve better results(in video quality/storage) while maintaining a good level of compatibility over time. Some formats have been created around a single codec instead of supporting multiple ones, however that approach is considered outdated in the web video era.
