Technology one

Digital video file formats

There are multiple digital file formats including;

MP4
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Avi
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Flv
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Swf
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3GP
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 MP4
An mp4 or data such as still images and subtitles. However, they arMPEG-4 is a digital media format
that is used to store e more commonly used to store videos and audio. Like most modern container
formats, an MP4 allows streaming over the internet.

The advantages of using this format are that it is the most compressed format with the highest
quality which means that it has the best quality for the small file size. This format was originally
released in 2001and is based around the QuickTime file format. It is accepted by most media players
and editing software's.

'The MP4 file format defined some extensions over the ISO Base Media File Format to support
MPEG-4 visual/audio codecs and various MPEG-4 Systems features such as object descriptors and
scene descriptions.' Some of these extensions are also used by other formats based on ISO base
media file format.

MP4 file format versions

 AVI

Known by its initials AVI, audio video interleave is another multimedia container format that was
introduced in 1992 by Microsoft as part of its video for windows software. AVI contain both audio and
video date in a 'file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback.' AVI is a sub-format
of the Resource Interchange File Format which divides the files data into blocks. The blocks will be
then identified by a fourCC tag. The AVI file will take form of an individual block in a RIFF formatted
file, which will then be subdivided into to mandatory blocks.

The first block or sub-chunk is identified by the hdrl tag, which contains metadata about the video
such as the frame rate. The second sub-chunk is identified by the movi tag, which contains the audio
and visual data that make up the AVI movie. The last sub-chunk, which happens to be optional, is
identified by the idx1 tag 'which indexes the offsets of the data chunks within the file.'

Since its introduction in the early 90s, new computer video techniques have been introduced which
the original AVI specification did not anticipate.

AVI does not provide a standardized way to encode aspect ratio information, with the result that
players cannot select the right aspect ratio automatically (though it may be possible to do so
manually)
 FLV

Flv also known as flash video, is a container file format that is used to deliver digital video content
such as TV shows over the internet. These files can be opened using adobe flash player, and as
most computers have this, there is usually no problem with these files being opened. Developed by
adobe systems, the FLV format is supported by adobe flash player. Flash Video FLV files usually
contain material encoded with codecs following the Sorenson Spark or VP6 video compression
formats.

Flash Video is viewable on most operating systems by the Adobe Flash Player and web browser
plugin or one of several third-party programs. Apple's iOS devices, along with almost all other mobile
devices, do not support the Flash Player plugin and so require other delivery methods such as
provided by the Adobe Flash Media Server.

However, this file is becoming outdated and replaces by HTML5 file formats and it has been reported
that adobe will no longer support these files by 2020.
 SWF
Small web format, often abbreviated to SWF, is an adobe flash player format which is used for
multimedia, vector graphics, games and action script. Originally originating with future-wave, SWF
was later transferred to macro-media to be then taken over by Adobe. “SWF files can contain
animations or applets of varying degrees of interactivity and function.” SWF may also occur in
programs, most commonly browser games, using action script.

SWF files can be generated within multiple adobe products, including, flash, flash builder and adobe
animate. Adobe illustrator can also create SWF file formats using the 'export' function. However, the
software itself can not open nor edit them. Browsers like fire fox can automatically play and open
these files as they are already loaded with the adobe flash player. You can also choose to allow
certain websites to always allow a format to be loaded on google chrome. However they will not do it
automatically.

Besides adobe, various other third party programs can also generate SWF file formats, including,
Multimedia Fusion 2, Captivate and SWiSH Max.
 3GP

Another multimedia container format is 3GP which is used on 3G mobiles as well as some 2G and
4G phones. It was designed in order to make file sizes smaller to allow mobile phones to use video.
The intention of this extension was to save on disk space and data usage and they are often created
and transferred by mobile devices. The majority of 3G phones and more advanced phones will
support the play back and recording of video in the 3GP format. However, it may be limited for the
memory and resolution. Depending on the device used, the limit will vary. Devices such as game
systems like nintendo DSI support .3gp on SD cards

3GPP comes in two standards, 3GPP with the file extension .3gp which was created for GSM based
phones and 3GPP2, with the file extension .3g2 which are used for CDMA based phones. Both stand
for third Generation Partnership Project and third Generation Partnership Project 2 respectively.

“The 3GP file format can store video streams as either MPEG-4 Part 2, H.263 or MPEG-4 Part 10
(AVC/H.264), and audio streams as AMR-NB, AMR-WB, AMR-WB+, AAC-LC, HE-AAC v1 or
Enhanced aacPlus (HE-AAC v2).”

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 Conclusion

To conclude, A video file format is a type of file format for storing digital video data on a computer
system or mobile device. Video is almost always stored in compressed form to reduce the file size. A
video file normally consists of a container format containing video data in a video coding format,
alongside audio data in an audio coding format.

Depending on the device or outcome of the content, the format used will vary. This is because some
such as 3GP are created to compress the video so that the file size is not to big.

For my video advert I will be using MP4 as this allows videos and audio to be stored as well as
subtitles and images which are used in my advert. It also means that my video will be a higher
quality than it would be if I used another format.