Audio Video Interleave (avi)

Wikipedia

A multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in 1992. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback.

MIME Type:
video/x-msvideo
Advantages:
  • Wide compatibility across different devices and platforms
  • Good for storing uncompressed video
  • Supports multiple audio and video codecs
Disadvantages:
  • Larger file sizes compared to modern formats
  • Limited support for modern features like subtitles
  • No built-in streaming support

MPEG-4 Part 14 (mp4)

Wikipedia

A digital multimedia container format most commonly used to store video and audio data. Based on the ISO/IEC 14496-14 standard, it's one of the most popular video formats.

MIME Type:
video/mp4
Advantages:
  • Excellent compression while maintaining quality
  • Wide device and platform support
  • Supports streaming
  • Good for web delivery
Disadvantages:
  • Lossy compression may reduce quality
  • May require licensing for commercial use

Matroska Video (mkv)

Wikipedia

An open standard free container format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture, or subtitle tracks in one file.

MIME Type:
video/x-matroska
Advantages:
  • Supports multiple audio/subtitle tracks
  • Open-source format
  • Highly flexible container format
  • Supports chapters and metadata
Disadvantages:
  • Limited support on mobile devices
  • Not all media players support it natively

QuickTime Movie (mov)

Wikipedia

A multimedia container file format developed by Apple that contains one or more tracks of video and audio data.

MIME Type:
video/quicktime
Advantages:
  • High quality
  • Native support on Apple devices
  • Good for editing
Disadvantages:
  • Large file sizes
  • Limited compatibility on non-Apple platforms

Windows Media Video (wmv)

Wikipedia

A compressed video compression format developed by Microsoft for its Windows Media framework.

MIME Type:
video/x-ms-wmv
Advantages:
  • Good compression
  • Native Windows support
  • Suitable for streaming
Disadvantages:
  • Limited platform support
  • Proprietary format
  • Quality loss with high compression