MP4 File format, What It Is and How to Open It?

A number of existing file formats use the ISO Base Media File Format, not least the MPEG-4 MP4 File Format, and the Motion JPEG 2000 MJ2 File Format. The first version of the MP4 file format was revised and replaced by MPEG-4 Part 14: MP4 file format (ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003), commonly named as MPEG-4 file format version 2.

MP4 File format

MP4 File format includes separate compression for audio and video tracks. Video is compressed with MPEG-4 video encoding and audio is compressed using AAC compression, which is the same type of audio compression used in .AAC files. MPEG-4 Part 14 or MP4 is a digital multimedia format most commonly used to store video and audio, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images. The MP4 file format defined some extensions over the ISO Base Media File Format to support MPEG-4 visual/audio codecs and various MPEG-4

Systems features such as object descriptors and scene descriptions. The MPEG-4 file format specification was based on the QuickTime format specification. MP4 is short for MPEG-4 Part 14, which is a container format based on the QuickTime File Format (QTFF) used by .MOV and .QT files.

QuickTime File Format

The QuickTime File Format (QTFF) is designed to accommodate the many kinds of data that need to be stored in order to work with digital multimedia. The QuickTime File Format has been used as the basis of the MPEG-4 standard and the JPEG-2000 standard, developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). QuickTime files are used to store QuickTime movies, as well as other data. QuickTime Player supports a number of formats, such as QuickTime movie files (MOV), most MPEG-4 files (MP4, M4V, M4A, MP3), MPEG-2, DV Stream, Mjpeg, and some audio files like WAV, AIFF, AAC. Although Apple QuickTime is indeed a powerful and convenient media player, many of the video & audio files you come across on the web still can't be played in QuickTime.



Features of MP4 Format

• MP4 allows streaming over the Internet

• High degree of compression

• Smaller File size when compared to other formats

• Retains almost the same video quality

• Record high motion content

• Very portable and easy to distribute

• Supported by popular Video players, operating systems and platforms

• Share movies and video clips on the Internet

How Do I Open an MP4 File?

MP4 is highly related to the MOV format, so you open MP4 videos on any Mac based computer. MP4 is used on Linux, and there are a lot of open source players that supports this format. Since Windows system has Windows Media Player or QuickTime installed, MP4 files should open automatically on windows and without downloadimg any additional software. MP4 files are supported by default on many mobile devices too, like Apple's iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone, as well as Android devices.

How to convert videos to MP4 File?

One of the easiest programs to use for MP4 conversions is Freemake Video Converter. This tool is ideal for converting MP4 because it works at high speed and does not compromise the quality of the video. Freemake Video Converter supports all popular formats including: 3GP, AAC, AMR, AVI, BMP, FLAC, FLV,H264, HTML5, JPG, M4A, MP3, MP4, MTS, SWF and WMA.