Codecs and Containers - the wonderful world of video files 

HOLY F**K! the clarity and practicality of this video is Mind Boggling. Some one gives this man a medal

Wow, this is one of the best, if not the best, videos I've ever seen on this subject! Your presentation was so easy to follow, especially due to your animations! I sure wish I had found this video a couple of weeks ago, because I just spent hours upon hours and days upon days for two weeks learning most of this stuff from many different (hard to follow) sources. If I had come across this video sooner it would have saved me two weeks of living hell. However, it still helps to reinforce what I have learned and helps me "see" it in my head better, and so I'm less likely to forget it. From now on, I will refer to this video whenever I need a reminder. Thank you!!!

seriously dude, I saved this video for reference! I saw so many about conversion and compression and FINALLY you gave me simple words explanation and a solution! Most of the others don't suggest you they just talk... Thank you!

Very VERY well explained! It holds true even still, even if the standards are slowly evolving. Thank you very much!

Ran across this video while working on a project. Absolutely brilliant way of the break down for codecs & containers. I don't think is there a better way of explaining the it the way you've done it in this video. Great & priceless video information Mr. Fahrenberger - THANK YOU !!

boy, this guy explained it well. make more videos man! spread the knowledge. God bless ya

BEST 10 minutes on Codecs and Containers I've come across! Took notes. Great stuff!

damn that orange text on the blue background is really fuckin up my eyes man

Thank you Flo for making this wonderful, clear and straight forward video! Imagine how much fun and how easy learning would be if all tutorials were as good as yours! Thanks again!

This video is immensely useful. Sir I appreciate your work. One of the best explanatory videos I've come a crossed.

Thank you so much for creating & sharing this video. This is by far one of the most well explained content on this subject. Special mention on the simplicity of it, since even a layman like me could easily follow this.

Felt confident seeing and reviewing this succinct seminar before a job interview.

I've been looking for these answers on a lot of videos and they just got me confused! But you man, you did it very nice well explained! Everyone confused about this topic should watch this video. Thanks a lot! Great video!

That was very informative, I'll probably not remember everything, so I expect I'll be watching this video again a few times in the future. Thanks for sharing.

I think this video is a great addition to yours. Both videos are helpful and become even more powerful together.

Wow, this is one of the most flattering comments I've gotten yet. It's so great to hear that the effort will be for the benefit of students and totally makes it worth the work. Thanks a lot!

This is one of the best videos I have ever seen on Codecs. Simple, yet comprehensive. I understand much better now; what I capture in, what I will edit with, and how I will distribute completed files. :-)

Thank you Fahrenberger. You really explained codecs and containers in a straightforward way and I learned a lot.

6 years later, still a great explanation! Thanks a lot!

TY! You've made this confounding topic easy to understand and implement. Best info video I'se seen on the subject

Florian-- GREAT video with vivid and lucid explanations of a sometimes difficult and arcane subject. BRAVO! Zehr Gut!

That is one of the best presentations I've seen. As far as the formats are concerned the Matroska and .avi extensions are widely used among the p2p community, also for converting video files.

Such a great summation of important info. I'm very grateful for the overview! Thank you!

Hi Flo, Beautifully clear and concise explanation. Thanks!

That was really great. Thank you so much. Trying to get a better grasp on this stuff and that was a wonderful visual presentation on such a complex subject. Well done :)

Wow that was exactly what I needed, and well made! Great work man!

PERFECT ! PERFECT ! PERFECT ! Many thanks for this thorough tutorial on this complicated subject.

Wow, job well done sir! This is a very, very informative tutorial, packed with tons of concepts, and compressed into a roughly 9 minute long video. Thank you very much for sharing.

good job man, my eyes are bleeding now because of contrast. next time try green on red

This made my day. I am very happy that this video is still helping people.

This is an outstanding talk about a complicated subject. Well done!

I have been looking for a tutorial like this. Very clear, very instructive. Thanks!

This is a very good video...simply explaining complex things...well done!

Thanks so much for your video. I learned so much. Very kind of you to put it out there.

Having taught Digital Media in a High School for 7 years up till 2011, I wish I had this as a teaching aid then, to help to explain this highly confusing issue, thank you, very well done!

Incredibly helpful, thanks!

this is the best video i've seen that explains codecs in the simplest yet detailed form...thank you so much :)

This has confused me for so many years. Thank you good sir.

Awesome explanation and great job on the video!

Florian, Thanks for the great video and explanation. Very thoughtful and I'm sure it took you a while. I'll be sharing this with video students in the future as it seems to be one of the hardest things to understand (crash!)

Excellent presentation of this confusing topic!! Thank you for clearly explaining this!

Thanks. I finally understood the difference between codecs and containers.

Very creative video and a very easy to follow demonstration. Great job!!!

Excellent video...thanks for the explanation.

Very good content. I like your accent, it's so easy on the ears.

Much much clearer to me now. Thanks so much!!!

Thanks for such a nice concise summary! Really great :)

Very nice job putting this together.

Fantastic video, clearly explained, to the point. I get it now!

Thank you, Florian. Very useful. I'll share with my filmmaking students.

This was very clear information. Thanks mate.

Nice presentation so that any one can understand. Thanks.

Excellent video. Thanks. Wow video is complicated. Really appreciate you trying to explain it.

Thanks for making this! Very informative!

Excellent presentation

Florian, excellent job!

Wonderful and Excellent explanation. Thanks very much..God bless u

Thanks Florian. Excellent video- very useful

Amazing video! Hands down!

You are the Best sir, excellent basics

Excellent explanation. Thanks very much.

Great Tutorial Florianl! Thanks a lot!

It was great to hear you sir, I think i have founf my Guru of Compression. I will ask some questions in my next comments Thanks

Very very well explained, thank you!

Should have watched this much earlier! Lot of good and helpful info! Thanks a lot for making this! :)

This was SO helpful. Thank you so much for making it! I leaned a lot. One suggestion - don't use blue background with orange text. It makes an optical illusion-like effect when viewing, making the content much harder to discern.

Thank you. Your video was very helpful and clarifying.

This is great! Very well explained. Thank you!!

Really helpful video. Thank you very much!

That sounds great, thank you.

Wow, what an excellent breakdown of codecs and containers, thank you for taking the time to do this! I agree that AVCHD containers are impractical for ingesting, and keeping the metadata intact. I recently bought a Sony CXR-900 and it only offers AVCHD, and I cannot find a good way to import the videos on my iMac without losing the metadata. Am I forced to buy a professional video editing program to import the clips with their associated metadata?

Hi Florian, thank u for ur video. Very well explained!!..I am new to this .. I shot a video with my sony A7sII slow motion in NTSC 60fps slow motion..The result was a Mp4 output.There were lots of folders in the sony files..I just copied the clip folder which contained the footages and left the rest(Like mediapro.xml/ status.bin/thumbnl) My final output should be in PAL 24fps..I am editing in fcpx. Should I transcode the files into apple pro res first or Proxy( How do I relink afterwards if so) or directly work on mpg4. And how do I convert the NTSC into PAL.. ? Thanks a ton

I'm glad someone explained this in simple terms I do think the industry has made it deliberately complicated for the lay person though...

Outside the Apple and Adobe 'bell jars', Matroska (MKV) IS actually a widely supported container format (and even more so now that Microsoft supports it natively (if containing recognized video formats) in both Windows 8.1 and Windows 10), so I beg to differ. ;) MP4 is also inferior to MKV in terms of soft/hardware player support for advanced metadata features (chapters, multiple subtitles/audio tracks) - and it might force to downgrade the quality of your audio and video streams, since it is much more restrictive in terms of format support. MKV should always be preferred for preservation, since it also allows for lossless video and high definition audio formats. MP4 is mainly suited for quick video distribution - not preservation/archiving purposes. MOV and MXF only exist because of professional conservatism against open standards. Anything else only exist because of outdated hardware restrictions. Roughly put, there is in principle no need for other video container formats than MKV (but industry still refuses to play along, so that is why we still have to mess with dozens of soon obsolete container formats). Much the same can be said about FLAC now that it will also be natively supported by Windows. However, MKV is a great streaming format, whereas FLAC is useless for streaming. As for video formats that is something that is constantly improving. H.265 and maybe VP10 might someday fully replace H.264. As for lossless video, the best free format is probably FFV.

Thank you for the great Video. Couple of questions. What is a good codec to save a video in if it will be put into a SCORM package so it can be used for streaming to someones computer in a training video series. the average length of those video's are around 30 minutes. Also a separate question. Does the codec I'm using in editing or output have something to do with how the video plays back. For example I do a lot of DSLR video and sometimes during the camera movement in the outputted movie the camera pan's are not very smooth. I'm wondering if this has to do with the codecs used. Thanks very much!

Very well explained :) Thanks so much!

Thank you for all that information

Florian Fahrenberger, thank you very much for your video. For the first time I have the ideas more clear. I've been trying for a long time unsuccessfuly to export AVCHD (from a Sony Video camera HDR-CX405) to a mac, but I can't get without loose because as you say in your video it has to be all the files no just the .mts, but no converter take all the files. Only the mts ones and that suppose a big loose. Your converter directly say "Couldn't convert file AVCHD. Sorry". Please is there some way? maybe with the terminal? Thank you in advance.

This helped me a lot. Thank you. :)

It is an excellent breakdown of codecs and containers, i would like to ask that i try to edit MOV file but after editing and saving file in MP4 then the audio and video is not matching and also i loose the quality of video is not same as original plz help me

really go0d graphical representation.. very understandable..

Great video. Thank you for sharing.

Awesome video thanks very much for the fantastic info..😬

fantastic video, thank you!

Nice presentation, thanks bro!

Hi Florian and thanks! I'm sorry for my bad english...I have a new camcorder Legria HF G30 and a MAC Book Pro bought 6 years ago but I'll buy a new Imac in the next week. In your opinion for the best quality video of my DVDs, is better: -to record in AVCHD and then to convert to MPEG4 in the camcorder? -to record in AVCHD and then to convert to IMOV in the MAC? -to record in AVCHD and then to convert to MPEG4 in the MAC? -to record directly in Mpeg4 and then to edit in my Mac? THANKS

Excellent and clear, thank you. My question is as I use Prosumer Panasonics for video I have a Choice of .MP4 or the AVCDH. Using the Davinci Resolve Editor I would be best dropping my video files to edit as .MP4 and Davinci will take care of the rest?

VERY HELPFUL! I did not know that mpeg-4 was h.264 this whole time, because whenever I checked on Bandicam for mp4 codecs, that was the only one there. All I want to do is record a flash game in 30 fps (480p is fine) so what should I aim for?

HOw do I get one video with multiple bit rates into one container so the video will play on all devices? And what container would be used for that ( mp4, HLS )?

Wow, great content!

great video Florian

Great work

Please tell me which exporting format is good for high quality video in PC...premier pro CC15

I'm using SONY(AVCHD) but while I try to edit videos there was a problem with playing videos,they can't play smoothly.Can you please help me sir ...

I could use some help. I recorded some dance concerts on my AVCHD camcorder but didnt know enough to import from the flash drive in Powerdirector. Instead I took just the .mts files and used them in Powerdirector and the resulting quality is not very good. I know it can be better because I recorded another dance concert and did import (capture) from the flash drive and the quality was so much better. My end product is for the customer and it is DVD. Is there something I can do with the raw .mts files that will result in good dvd's at this point.

Any tips on how to display the date/time metadata in the the final product? I need this for evidence all my surveillance video? I know there are some programs out there that can read the data and burn it on the image, but I have not found one that works very well.

very clear and helpful! thanks.

Super hero, thank you for this nice tutorial. Could you explain what are the difference between mpeg1, 2, 3, and 4?

Great job Florian. You recommend MTS or MP4 for editing in Final Cut Pro 7. Since they both require conversion, is there any benefit from one over the other? For example the XA20 offers both options. Please advise.

Thanks for the video.... just wanted to know the EXACT Differences between codec and container... from what i understand codec is set of frames all compressed and placed in a container for final output... thanks