Digital video file formats drive lots of people up the wall.  Including me. 

I’ve heard some people complain that confusion over file formats is what prevents them from using video online.

Let’s get over that!

Although they can indeed be a pain in the tush, understanding video file formats on a basic level well enough to use online video is NOT that difficult.

If simple use of online video is your goal, a complete A-Z knowledge of file formats will not be necessary to function.    If you know the common formats, you’ll probably be ok.

There are two main times during the whole process of video making when files formats are an issue.

1.  What format comes out of your camera?  (Or whatever your source video is.)  It needs to be accepted by whatever video editing program you use.   Before you buy a video editing program, check to see what formats it accepts.  Make sure it matches your source video format.

2.  When you are done with your video, you need to convert it into an appropriate sharing format.  There are only a handful of common sharing formats.    If you are up loading to the web, sites generally take the same common formats.

Source video files, used at the beginning of a project, will more likely be uncompressed, large files.

A sharing file on the other hand, is usually compressed quite a bit.

IS THERE ONE “BEST” FORMAT?

Most formats are compatible with multiple players and will work in many situations. Lots of people think there is only ONE magic format that works best.  Truth is, all formats have their pros and cons and are used in different situations.

If you want to edit your video, save yourself some headaches and buy a video camera that records in an edit-friendly format like DV, mini-DV.  Mini Dv has been around for a while and is being replaced by newer formats like HVCHD.  Although more and more editing programs accept the newer formats, the pioneers of these formats always experience more headaches.  I hear lots of moaning about that.

Converting from one format to another is no more difficult that doing a “save as” with a word document.    You pick which format you want and the software does the rest.  The trick of course is to have the right software for the job and know what format you want.   Depending on the sophistication of the software you’re using, you might have options in terms of size, resolution, compression type, compression amount, etc.

Simple programs do not give you that many options.  In fact, really simple programs often do not even require you know what format you need.  Those programs just ask how the video is going to be used and then select the right format for you.  If you haven’t a clue what you are doing, trusting that default process usually gets good results.

Any video editing software should be able to convert into multiple formats.   No matter what type of conversion you need to do, there is some software somewhere that will do the job.

It pays to know the most common formats.  There are literally thousands of video formats, but you DO NOT have to know even a fraction of all that in order to use online video with confidence.

This article lists the most common ones and their pros, cons and typical uses.

Here is a list of the most common formats with the pros and cons for each.  This list is by no means a complete list.  It is meant for beginning and intermediate level video producers.

AVCHD: This is an HD format for high resolution video.   These files are becoming quite common as HD spreads to more consumers.  AVCHD is not a sharing format, it’s for video at the beginning of a project.  Since HD is still a new format, few edit programs handle HVCHD files yet, although the list grows daily.

Lots of cameras today shoot AVCHD and if you just want to watch your home movies without editing, AVCHD is a good format.  If you want to edit, be prepared for some troubles.   Not that you can’t do it, just be warned that it takes a while for editing programs to adjust to any new file format.  Check to see what formats your software accepts before buying an HD camera.   

.avi: AVI is what’s known as a container format.  (Sometimes referred to as a wrapper.)  There are many formats in this category and here’s what it means.  Let’s make an analogy of a “container” for liquid.  The container is the container; it will hold any kind of liquid.  (Or even a solid!)  You can put water or gasoline into the container.  Same with a “container” video format.

Video formats come in  parts, layers and types.  The “container” is part of the video file and it holds other parts.  Any video you watch is made up of a container and numerous interior parts.  For example, the video and audio are actually separate signals bundled together within the container.

Those interior parts can vary and the video still be considered a certain format.  This leads to very confusing compatibility issues!  Just because your format is something common like AVI does not mean it will work within a program that accepts AVI.  Chances are it will not be too hard to make the necessary adjustments once you know what you need to adjust.

AVI is an early form of video file so it has been around forever and is very common.   The fact that it has been around forever means it is highly compatible with most players, even with the rotating insides issues.

AVI is for video in the beginning of a video project. .avi files are usually way too big for a finished video so it is not considered a sharing file.    .avi is better used as a format in the beginning stages of video production, not for the final output.

.wmv: A Microsoft format. .wmv stands for Windows Media Video.  .wmv files are tiny because they are highly compressed.  This is one of the smallest  sharing formats, so it is for the end stages of your video project.

Any video this highly compressed looks a bit ragged, that’s just the nature of the beast.  I think .wmv files look horrible.  The more you compress a video, the more details and info you take out.  This makes your resolution suffers.  Compression is always a balance between file size and image quality.  But tiny video files are a great thing, so sometimes people are willing to put up with the lousy resolution in order to have the convenience of a small video file.

.WMV files are the type of videos you get emailed directly to you.  .wmv are about the only type of file small enough to email so that is a huge advantage.  As bad as I think wmv files look, I don’t care that the video is grainy when my friends send me funny videos attached directly to the email.

Since windows based products are so common, .wmv files will play on just about anything, except a Mac.  No problem!    If you want to play a wmv file on a mac, download some software from microsoft called Flip for Mac. There is a free version.

.mov files: .mov as the file extension means the video is a Quicktime Movie file, which is an Apple software product. Quicktime movie files are very common and one of my personal favorites. MOV functions frequently as both a sharing file but is quality enough to use as source video inside of an editing program.  In fact, if you download stock footage chances are fairly high that it will be an .mov file.

.mov files look great, but unless you compress them an awful lot, they are still a bit big for a sharing file.

I did an experiment where I converted the exact same video into both a .mov and the other into a .wmv, using the standard default compression settings.  The .mov look significantly better but it was 80MB and the .wmv only about 2 MB.  That is a huge difference and it showed but 80 MB is pretty fat.

.flv: .flv means it is a Flash video format.  This is an extremely common and popular format because it is small but still looks good.  This is the most common sharing format on the web there is.

.flv is highly compatible with most computers and browsers.   If you are watching a video online, it is probably in .flv format. Unless of course, you have an iphone, then you are just not watching much online video are you?    (Is Apple making a mistake there?)

If you are uploading to the web, you do not necessarily need your video to be in flv format first.   Internet sharing sites like You Tube will accept multiple format uploads, but before they are actually posted online, You Tube converts it to .flv for you.  You do not have to convert it into flv yourself if you use many of the available online video platforms, they convert it for you.    If you have a video on your own server then you should convert it to an flv before loading it onto your server because that way you will get the greatest number of viewers who can potentially see it.

MPEG2: MPEG 2 is the type of video file the a home DVD player will read.  If you go out and rent a Hollywood Movie from Blockbuster, the DVD will contain an MPEG2 file.

MPEG2 is way too big for the web.  MPEG2 is also incompatible with video editing software. You can not edit an MPEG2 file without converting it first. Use some common and free conversion software called MPEG Streamclip.

Some new video cameras shoot on MPEG2 because camera manufacturers have realized more people care about the ability to pop their home movies into a DVD player to instantly watch than care about editing their video. So if you are buying a video camera, keep this in mind.  Before editing mpeg2 video you have got to convert it first.  That is not difficult once you have the mpeg streamclip which I linked to in the above paragraph.

MPEG4: MPEG 4 is a sharing format that produces tiny files that still look pretty good.  Not as good as .MOV, IMHO but they are so much smaller in size the trade off is worth it if you are mostly concerned with size, not high resolution.  A video that is 100MB as a quicktime move might only be about 10 MB as a MPEG2.  (Assuming you use the default compression settings.)

Which file format is “best” for you to use depends on how you are going to use it.  If you want to email a video, it had better be tiny so you need to throw high resolution out the window.  On the other hand, if you are trying to impress some big money investors with a video of your invention,high resolution would be way more important than a tiny file size.

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY DIFFERENT FORMATS FOR VIDEO?

First, a brief explanation about why so many digital video file formats exist and what that really means.

High quality video files (raw footage files) are huge.  The higher the resolution, the bigger the file because it contains more information in order to achieve that high gorgeous resolution.  HD video is difficult to edit with the file sizes are so huge.

To play videos on the web or your computer, they have to be compressed, or made smaller.  This is done by designing ways to take information out of the video signal.  If you take information out, the resulting file is smaller but the loss of information degrades the picture quality. This process is called compression.

Video files can be compressed in a wide variety of ways by different kinds of software.  This results in many different formats.   Which format it is is indicated by the three letters (sometimes 4) that follow the file name.

Example: If a video file name is MyVacation.mov, the .mov means it is a Quicktime Movie file.  Quicktime is an Apple format described in detail above.

If the video file is MyVacation.wmv, the .wmv means it is Windows Media Video, which is a Microsoft format.  That format too is in the above list.

Lots of different companies and organizations have designed programs to compress video.  They each have their own way of doing it, so you have lots of different file formats.  Some were created by Microsoft, some by Apple, some by standardizing agencies like the Motion Picture Experts Group.

Once you compress a video, you have to have a program that “reads” it, or basically uncompresses it to play.  The program that “reads” the video  is called a video player.  Video players are built to read particular video file formats and not others.  This is where the incompatibility comes in.

In a video editing program, the format affects how each command will work.  When they design a program, they build it to work with certain formats only.

Microsoft was never anxious for you to see videos made by Apple computers, so they made their video players incapable of deciphering an Apple-made video and visa versa.

So everybody is competing and the nature of the beast guarantees incompatibility.   Phooey!

The good news is that over the years, more and more compatibility was built into the system in order to satisfy the public, who of course need easy compatibility.  So now, most computers contain multiple players, one of which will handle whatever video you want to play.  Most online video sites can also handle multiple formats.  So in general, if you stick with the most common formats, you will be fine.

Once you understand how easy video formats really are, you can convert and upload with confidence!

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips.

Lorraine Grula

Internet Video Gal