In my knowledge, the container format are:

AVI 1.0(VfW 1.1)/2.0(OpenDML 1.2?) = designed by Micro$oft???
MKV = Matroska container(old name is Media container format?)
NUT = NUT open container from linux
ASF/WMV = Active(advance?) streaming format
MOV = container for Quicktime movie?
3GPP/3GP/3GP2 = Third generation partnership project (container for mobile phone?)
MP4 = MPEG-4 container
MPG/MPEG = MPEG1/2/3 container
OGG = Xiph official container
OGM = create by Tobias
MKA = Matroska container for audio?
WAV = Container for audio

So any moderators or members please correct me if i am wrong(also correct my language error), or tell me if i am missing some container format. Thanks!!

3gpp = mpeg-4 systems
there is no mpeg-3.
mka = mkv = normal matroska
ogm is almost ogg and wav is almost avi

MKA/MKV and OGG/OGM each are the same thing.
The different file-suffixes only help telling apart audio from video files (primarily a Win32 problem).

There's also NSF, which is the Nullsoft Streaming Format.

Many thanks , Latexxx and dev0.

I am missing the realnetwork a/v container,
RM = old real media a/v container?
RMVB = real media variable bitrate(???)

rm = rmvb. no difference what so ever.

AIFF = Audio Interchange File Format. WAV for Apple Mac.
AU = Audio. WAV for Sun/NeXT workstations.
SND = Sound. WAV for old Unix workstations.

SWF might also be considered a container of sorts, since you can add Video (Sorenson Spark), Audio (ADPCM and MP3), bitmaps, vetorial images, scripts... to it.

Some people (Matroska developers) would insist tagging schemes like ID3 and APE are also containers. I disagree.

not again... OGM is *not* Ogg... OGM is hacked Ogg

also... why did no one mention VOB?

@rjamorim: if some of the tags were actively used to influence playback, i could understand that... otherwise its just junk data

[edit] also DAT

Out of curiosity, how different is OGG from OGM? I know from reading a bunch of things (including that pdf from the avimux-gui guy), that OGM is bad juju, compared to mkv and avi. The reason being is that theora is usually muxed into ogg.

they are not completely different formats...

you could say that an Ogg file is a valid OGM file, but an OGM file is not a valid Ogg file. The main difference lies therein that OGM uses private headers for identifying non-Ogg codecs (DivX , XviD, MP3, etc.)

The main advantages of MKV over OGM are:
- in general less overhead
- more different types of streams that are currently supported

Xiph's stance on OGM

@stephanV:

DAT = VCD MPEG1 video warpper?
VOB = DVD MPEG2 video warpper?

@latexxx:

May be i'm mislleading by the real alternative codec....
Need more testing and checking...

@yong

yep, although i believe DAT is also used for SVCD... but you would have to check that out.

Real producer names vbr files as .rmvb but there is no difference in container level.

No, it's ".MPG" for SVCDs (MPEG2 program stream)
"VOB" is just another extension for an MPEG2 program stream with optionally scrambled blocks (due to CSS).


SebastianG

@rjamorim:



I'm not understand, thats mean the AIFF, AU and SND are same as the RIFF WAV format?(can contain different audio codec?)



I agree, but can i say all the common file compressed format like ZIP, 7Z, LZH, RAR, TAR, CAB... also are container?

Correct form first post:
MPG/MPEG = MPEG1/2/4 container

I meant they have the same purpose: a container for audio only that can store different kinds of compression and uncompressed (PCM) streams.



Well, they surely are containers in the broadest sense of the word. But I thought you were talking about multimedia containers in this thread.

BIK/SMK = Smacker/Bink Video container

VOB does not have to be scrambled. There are (I think) three types of MPEG-2 containers for video.
TS = Transport Stream
PS = Program Stream
ES = Elementary Stream

I'm pretty sure that VOBs contain PS. SVCDs probably also use PS. TS is used in broadcasting, like from satellites or TV. ES is basically just the raw MPEG-2 data.

I'm not sure what the differences are between the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 containers are, but I doubt they are much.

I have a question, i assumed that the mpeg 1 audio(mp1/2/3) is inside the container(stupid me...),
why we need mpeg1 splitter and mpeg audio decoder in order to playback in the dshow based player?
Please correct me and explain, thanks.

While it would have been possible to combine the two splitters into one, there really isn't a point. In DirectShow there is an advantage to keeping things modular. The splitter can handle all of the low level stuff like seeking. The decoder only needs to handle decoding. They can be updated independantly of each other, or you could even mix filters from different sources.

Wow thanks Pamel for the explainations

Seems no one try to correct my mistake from first post,
IIRC the quicktime MOV file can read by the MP4info.exe(a tool bundle with mpeg4iptools), may be even can read by MP4UI, thats mean the MOV container is same as MPEG-4 container?
Which container is an native quicktime container? A file with the *.qt extension?

MPEG-4 container is based on Quicktime's mov container.

@Latexxx:


Your reply is useful for me,
just search the exact word "MPEG-4 container is based on Quicktime's mov container."
in the google will came out a lot of useful information.
thx for the replies.

New DSM(Directshow Media) container by Gabest,
Download the splitter and muxer here(DSM 1.0.0.2)