Identifying and converting digital video file formats can be confusing and frustrating because of the large number of file types used in the industry and the strange names used to identify them. Here is an easy-to-use guide to help you deal with the 40 or so types of formats that today's digital videos can be saved in.
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It's not widely known, but digital video files actually have two layers. The outer layer is called the container. The container is mp3 also called a "wrapper," because it wraps together all the different subfiles that work together as a video. The inner layer of subfiles is called the codec. Codecs usually consist of a video file plus an audio file. When you play back the video on your computer, personal music player, cell phone, or DVD player, the codec files work together inside the container to give you a seamless viewing experience.
The names of the five most common container formats are probably familiar to you. They are AVI, MPEG-4, ASF (which is actually WMV), Flash, QuickTime, and 3GPP. There are many more obscure container types, but most of the time you'll be dealing with one of the "Big 5."
Usually, you only need to know what type of container file your video is stored in to tell you whether you can play it on your playback device. Occasionally, however, one of the codec files inside the container will be written in a format that your player software doesn't recognize. When this happens,
