The Ultimate Guide to Digital Video Formats

You should do more research.

Look up media player classic on sourceforge.

Plays all those things as long as no DRM is used and the codecs are installed.

Poor article.  This doesn’t make note of parts, profiles, or levels of these different codecs and instead just tries to use a personal opinion about general technologies.

A perfect example is MPEG-4.  MP4 is the container, but MPEG-4 as a video codec has several different parts, levels, and profiles.  The most common are MPEG-4 ASP and MPEG-4 AVC.

Blanket statements like MPEG-4 is better than WMV (or the other way around) is a common misconception and uneducated response.

@Chris: Thanks for the constructive criticism.

The piece is a more of a “primer” on the digital video formats, since some custom installers are finding that more and more products that their customers want rely on different types of digital video.

But you’re absolutely right—there is a deeper level to each of the formats, and perhaps that’s something to get into in another article.

Thanks!

Whoever wrote this article forgot to mention the best video format out there right now. MKV.

Good overview. I would have liked to see DivX covered too.

This is overall a decent primer article.  When one delves into the universe of playing Digital video; many times the end user experience is not always that great whether you don’t have sound, video, or even if the system is dropping frames adn offering poor playback.

@Plasma TV installation:  DIVX was covered it’s part of the MPEG 4 video standard…Part 2 same as XVID which is a free alternative.

@Juice:  While MKV is by far teh most versatile (container) format, it is not necessarily the best format for professional A/V company use.  MKV requires alot of resources to run for high quality endcodes and there is no “easy” program that you can use with the format to rip onto DVD or blu-ray with 100% sucess.

Educational for CEPros/businesses:  I personally use 2 codecs/packs for my Media Center.  They play every format mentioned above and several that are not included.  Also they enable work with Windows Media Center which is ultimately the easiest Media Program I have found that can be used by “non-technical” clients.

I use the Combined Community Codec Pack, (google it), and quicktime lite alternative.  Both of these programs are free and have been updated for nearly 2 years.

If you/your company/ or CEPro is interested on specific setup guides or recommended programs for ease of use/burning, please email me.  I’m not charging for basic knowledge.

General education:

AVI is a contasiner format that can hold 1 video stream and 1 audio stream.  Video can be in MPEG2, WMV (non-DRM), DIVX, or XVID.  Resolutions go up to 720 x 392ish for widescreen and 640 x 480 for Standard playback (DVD quality).  AVI is popular because it is easy to burn or redistribute and also many models of DVD players include DIVX/XVID support so you could load up 3 or more movies on 1 DVD with no quality loss.  AVI audio supports M2A, MP3, WAV, 5.1 AC-3.

MKV is another continer format.  MKV allows for multiple streams similiar to the MPEG-2 used on DVDs.  MKV also suports H.264/AVC (used in Blu-ray and HD-DVD).  MKV also supports advanced subtitling options.  An example of an mkv could be an entire movie encoded in 1920 x 1080, with (3) 7.1 AC-3 Tracks, (1) 7.1 DTS, and 5 different subtitles for various languages.  more on extra subtitling.  MKV supports SSA and ASS extensions of subtitles.  These allow things such as multiple subtitles on the screen at once.  Different fonts/colors for a single subtitle file, and the ability to do high quality karaoke
MKV is used mainly by fansub groups for anime.

Sorry for the legnth any more specific questions again pleae email me by clicking the blue part by my name.

wow I’m not in their database anymore if you want more specific information leave a comment.

for real hd i would add mkv as has been stated.  for regular dvd’s you could pass on just about any of the formats listed in the article.