Today I thought I’d help people out by putting together a definitive guide to all those video file extensions you see around, and more importantly how to watch them. I’ve put together the list of main codecs you will come across and highlighted some really useful video players.
MPEG (.mp4 .mp3)
On the Web, MPEG Video files have the extension .mpg and MPEG Audio files generally have the extension .mp2 or .mp3. In order to play MPEG files, you should install a Windows Media Player on your system. VLC player is another great free player that will handle almost all things video. It’s not got as great functionality as others but it’s something to think about having.
Quicktime (.mov)
Quicktime player is the Apple video player and is designed to play QuickTime movies (.movs). If you want to play Windows media files (.wmv) in QuickTime player you’ll need to download Flip 4Mac which is a really useful tool. QuickTime for Microsoft Windows is downloadable, either as a standalone installation or bundled with iTunes.
Windows Media (.wmv)
Windows Media Files are in Microsoft’s own video format. the most popular file extension is .wmv and they play best on Microsoft Windows Media Player (abbreviated WMP). WMP is a media library application used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices.
It’s a really useful format as it’s found on virtually every modern PC and you can embed the video in PowerPoint and other presentation programs. The compressions are not great on it though and getting a video to look good can mean a pretty large file size.
If you don’t have the latest version of the player click this link to Windows Media Player.
Flash Video (.flv .f4v)
Flash Video is used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player versions 6 onwards. There are two different video file formats known as Flash Video: FLV and F4V. The latter .F4V file format is very recent with support only starting with Flash Player 9 update 3. If your Flash player is older than this you won’t be able to watch a .f4v.
Flash video has quickly established itself as the format of choice for embedded video on the web. Notable users of the Flash Video format include YouTube, Hulu,Google Video, Yahoo! Video, Metacafe, Reuters.com, and many other news providers.
If you want to watch a Flash video file on your computer you should get hold of the most recent VLC or FLV Player
Iphone
Got an iPhone and want to put some video on it? The best format to use as an extension of .mov.
The iPhone plays video and audio using MPEG4 standards–H.264 video and AAC audio, and it’s pretty fussy about what it plays. You will need to export an iPhone movie from Quicktime or ImToo. As an example of what you can do why not download this ad we did for Peugeot – it shows what the system can do when it’s set up right. For the complete rundown on settings, why not check out this blog?
