Pros & Cons of different types of video file formats

Digital era has developed dramatically and video files have also become too common. When you are watching video on Youtube, Facebook, IGTV everyday, do you really understand types of video file formats? Each platform will require each format and if you want to develop your streaming business or become a Youtuber, do not go past this article. Today, we are going to share with you some pros and cons of popular video formats.

Pros & Cons of different types of video file formats

How many types of video file formats?

How many types of video file formats? That is a hard question to give the most exact answer. However, before finding the answer, let’s come back to the history of video formats. When were the first digital video formats invented?

At first, in 1975, Betamax was considered a pioneer of the home video revolution. Created by Sony, the Betamax enabled users to record and rebroadcast movies at home. However, in 1976, VHS stands for Video Home System was launched and replaced Betamax gradually. This video format is an analog recording videotape cassette that was encoded in FM on magnetic tape. The magnetic oxide particles are rearranged to encode video and audio signals.

Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) by encoding digital data. This differs from analog video, which shows moving visual images with analog signals.

So, Digital video was first launched commercially in 1986 with the Sony D1 format. It recorded videos in digital form that followed an uncompressed standard definition.

Digital video was first launched commercially in 1986 with the Sony D1 format

After many trials of the invention as well as advances, changing from magnetic tapes to optical discs, there are many types of video formats born. Some popular names can be listed such as MP4, MOV, AVI, FLV, MKV, AVCHD, etc.

To sum up, there are numerous video formats that exist but the most well-known of them have some slightly different traits. Let’s look at the next part to understand more.

Pros & Cons of different types of video file formats

♦ AVI

AVI short for Audio Video Interleaves and was developed by Microsoft during the early part of the 1990s. It used to become the “industry standard” video format.

Pros

AVI video formats are supported widely. This is also due to the fact that, from the beginning, many famous camera brands set this AVI to be the default video format.
Both PC and Mac devices also support the format.
The AVI codecs compress the AVI file size while reducing a little of the video quality.
Youtube, the biggest video sharing platform in the world, allows the AVI format to support the file extensions MOV, WMV, FLV, 3GP, MPEG-PS, WebM, and the aforementioned MP4 (MPEG4).

Cons

Uncompressed AVI files have a really large size.
You need to use the same codec that compresses the files in order to retrieve and play them.

♦ MP4

The MP4, stands for MPEG-4 Part 14, is a common video format that was invented initially for the QuickTime File Format. Much of its current notoriety can be a big distribution of Apple when accepting it on iTunes.

ONLINE VIDEO CONVERTER TO MP4

Pros

This video format MP4 is popular on famous video players such as iTunes, VLC, Windows Media Player, and GOM Player.
The best benefit it brings is such as closed caption file formats, which help with the video subtitles, of course, MP4 is supported on Youtube.
MP4 offers high-quality video. Especially, if you want to stream video, it can allow you to stream without reduction of quality.
It also supports 3D objects which are useful in presentations.

The MP4, stands for MPEG-4 Part 14, is a common video format that was invented initially for the QuickTime File Format

Cons

It is difficult to edit these types of video file formats. Although MP4 format can not be the main reason for this problem, it still can not be the best video format for editing.
Together with AVI, MP4 was introduced later, therefore it might have been the most widely spread file extension for several years. In the race of choosing the better one between MP4 and AVI?”, MP4 may slightly outrank the AVI format. The reason is that the MP4 format can be developed with more modern features than the older AVI video format was simply not designed to have.

♦ WEBM

Sponsored by the giant company - Google with the purpose of the leading video format in the market, the WEBM format has been used commonly on websites. When used together with HTML5 specifications, WEBM offers high-quality videos but with very small file sizes. As a result, for several years, numerous websites have to change their manners to design properly.

Pros

WEBM is an open-source format, everyone can use it freely due to the royalty-free format.
This video format file is supported for HTML5 and Chromecast.
Due to good quality videos as well as integrated on many well-known websites, WEBM is favored a lot especially Youtube and Wikimedia.
For video streaming, WEBM is a good types of video file formats when it can be easy to edit video in video software tools such as Corel VideoStudio. In fact, WEBM is still selected by some of the best free editing software.

Cons

Its popularity has been declining gradually. Many platforms do not support it anymore such as Mozilla and Google Chrome.
WEBM can not play on numerous varieties of mobile phones.

♦ AVCHD

AVCHD is a video format created by the combination of two giant electronic companies Sony and Panasonic. An acronym for Advanced Video Coding, AVCHD was developed in order for users to enable the playback of high-definition video. It was widely considered to be a success. Thanks to the high visual standard it offers, many pro videographers consider it as an industry-standard video format.

Pros

AVCHD is invented for a number of high-end hardware products including those manufactured by Canon, Hitachi, or Sony.
Another plus of AVCHD is that it is able to support 3D videos.

Cons

In spite of a high technical standard, AVCHD can not have its popularity more than its rival - the MP4 video format.
4K format has been popular nowadays but, unfortunately, AVCHD does not support it.
Heavy video size. In detail, it can take a long time to get the videos from your camera onto your computer for editing. The process occurs slower than with other formats. However, it is believed that professional video editing software is going to take a shine towards it over time.

Here is the table of technical information for types of video file formats AVI, MP4, WEBM, and AVCHD.

♦ FLV

FLV, short for Flash Video Format, is a place invented to store file format created that integrates with the computer software Adobe Flash Player. Essentially, the goal when introducing this video format is to take advantage of the distribution of high-quality video formats over the internet.

Pros

The Flash Video format comes with the help of websites that find out to add animation and interactive content. Also, the process is simple and, ultimately but it can have a great effect.
This video format can be used for simple games as it was in its heyday.

FREE VIDEO CONVERTER ANY FORMAT TO WEBM

Cons

It takes you a lot of time to create FLV video content and even with a quite costly price tag.
A further drawback is Flash content can not be displayed on iOS devices. If you do not want to lose a great potential number of fans, this can be a huge restriction.

♦ MOV

Another popular types of video file formats is the MOV video format. It is called MOV or QuickTime as well. Apple developed this video format for people who are seeking a format to easily edit videos. The movies edited could be set apart from the rest or from each other

into numerous tracks that permit the container of different types of data.

Apple developed this MOV video format for people who are seeking a format to easily edit videos

Pros

The MOV takes up a little bit of memory because it has a smooth, attractive design. This is also an advantage for its newest users to edit their videos to a high standard.
MOV can also be easily used to combine with other formats.

Cons

Sometimes you can have trouble with the relatively large video files as compared to formats such as AVI.
This video format is able to lose data because in a few ways, MP4 can be seen as a descendant of the MOV file, using similar lossy compression standards.

♦ WMV

With the desire of dominating the world of online video streaming, Microsoft developed Windows Media Video (MPV) to help it do that. With the help of the Windows brand, it is not an incomprehensible thing when its popularity is so wide.

Pros

The biggest plus of this WMV is its small size. Saved files are reduced drastically so that it is easier to transfer through light media means such as emails.
It is frequently used to store video files in the operating system - Windows. Moreover, other programs also take advantage of it in making short animations.

Cons

The main drawback of WMV is that the image quality is retained after compression.
Because it was developed to be in conjunction with Microsoft, the video format is not easy to see media players capable of running WMV files in other operating systems.

♦ MKV

In 2014, Russia made a breakthrough and forced all over the world to look at it due to the introduction of MKV. This video file format shorts for matroshka which is the term refer to Russian traditional stacking dolls. Being an open-source format, it is believed to become a competitor for AVI or MP4. It was developed by MCF (Multimedia Container Format) and received big support from Windows in technical aspects.

Pros

MKV video files format can support lossless quality as well as the single files are able to store an unlimited number of images, videos or audio.
Also due to an open-source project, it is encouraged for a variety of available codecs.

Cons

Unfortunately, Matroshka is still not widely supported. As long as the evolution project is still in its initial stages
It is said to be more complicated to use than AVI or MP4.

Unfortunately, Matroshka is still not widely supported. As long as the evolution project is still in its initial stages

Conclusion

To sum up, there are numerous different types of video file formats and each type has its pros and cons. Hope these useful sharing can help you somehow in the video streaming business or simply watching videos.