Video Formats

There are many video formts available nowadays, and I am writing this blog to explain some of the characteristics of these video formats which include Quicktime, Avi, MPEG, MP4, Divx and DVD.

Quicktime Player View

I am going to start writing about Quicktime. This program used to reproduce video, sounds or images, has been developed by Apple. What is great about this software is that it allows you to open an extense amount of formats including (AVI, MOV, DV, 3GGP). In addition, it can also open high definition formats, such as Blu-ray. And if you count with QuicktimePro, you can save your files in a lot of formats apart from editing a wide range of movies. Apart from these awesome features, probably the outstanding characteristic that enables quicktime to be one of the tops in its category of software is that it compresses the format while viewing in a way that makes the definition the best quality achievable.

Next, I am going to explain the characteristics of the video format named Avi. This format, which stands for Audio Video Interleave and that was created by Matrox OpenDML in 1996 and is now run by Microsoft, is exceptional concerning video and music. The incredible characteristic, is that it allows to save files with multiple streaming audio and video. It can also contain these files in numerous compressions schemes such as MPEG-4 video and many others. Its file extension is .avi and it can be opened by nearly every audio/video reproducer.

After talking of how AVI was very common, and I am now going to explain hat is probably the most famous and used video and audio format, MPEG. This video format, that stands for Moving Pictures Experts Group and was created ISO and IEC to set standards for audio and video compression and transmission. It has usually a better definition than other formats, to the point that with its new version, MPEG-21, it has reached high-defintion. However, before, in order to opne files with this extension, you had to have encoders that would enable you to open it, but now it can be opened by almost every reproducer. There are also many different evolutions of the formats, therefore I will put the evolution of the formats taken from Webopedia:

• MPEG-1: The most common implementations of the MPEG-1 standard provide a video resolution of 352-by-240 at 30 frames per second (fps). This produces video quality slightly below the quality of conventional VCR videos.
• MPEG-2: Offers resolutions of 720x480 and 1280x720 at 60 fps, with full CD-quality audio. This is sufficient for all the major TV standards, including NTSC, and even HDTV. MPEG-2 is used by DVD-ROMs. MPEG-2 can compress a 2 hour video into a few gigabytes. While decompressing an MPEG-2 data stream requires only modest computing power, encoding video in MPEG-2 format requires significantly more processing power.
• MPEG-3: Was designed for HDTV but was abandoned in place of using MPEG-2 for HDTV.
• MPEG-4: A graphics and video compression algorithm standard that is based on MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 and Apple QuickTime technology. Wavelet-based MPEG-4 files are smaller than JPEG or QuickTime files, so they are designed to transmit video and images over a narrower bandwidth and can mix video with text, graphics and 2-D and 3-D animation layers. MPEG-4 was standardized in October 1998 in the ISO/IEC document 14496. See MPEG-4.
• MPEG-7: Formally called the Multimedia Content Description Interface, MPEG-7 provides a tool set for completely describing multimedia content. MPEG-7 is designed to be generic and not targeted to a specific application.
• MPEG-21: Includes a Rights Expression Language (REL) and a Rights Data Dictionary. Unlike other MPEG standards that describe compression coding methods, MPEG-21 describes a standard that defines the description of content and also processes for accessing, searching, storing and protecting the copyrights of content. See MPEG-21.

After the huge explanation about MPEG, I am going to talk about MP4 which is also very used, especially in mobile devices, such as telephones, iPods and iPads. The main difference between this format and its last version, MP3, is that MP4 is prepared to stand 4 layers of information. This means that it can support an extremely compressed video format that, as said before, can be viewed in mobile formats. This is the main difference with MP3, that is mainly used for music. The advantages of having the MP4 file extension are uncountable since no other format supports the compression necessary in order for the videos to being seen in a mobile device.

The second to last video format I am going to write about in this blog is DivX. This file extension, although it is more of a reproducer, allows you to view probably all of the video format extensions to a high quality. It is available to all of the operating systems, and it is now expanding its domain to the mobile devices area and the tablets area, and now it is also available for some of these devices. I personally have used DivX and it is certainly a great reproducer of both music and video, and the best of all is that it is completely free and that you can download it from its homepage.

The last video format I am going to write about, although there are a lot of them remaining, is DVD. Probably of all of the readers know about this format, although more than a format, it is a way of storing your music and video. This way of reproducing your video and audio mainly in your computers or your cars was very popular during the last decade, but its usage is now in decline due to the improvement of technology and the expansion of internet and the apparition of other devices such as iPods or your mobile phones that can reproduce music and video and you do not need an object as big as a DVD. However, I personally still use DVDs when I create a movie since I do not have the means to save the movie in blue-ray discs. DVDs are especially useful since they can be reproduced in nearly every computer, however, as I explained before, there are now computers that do not come with DVD readers since everything i viewed or downloaded form the internet and DVDs are therefore no longer useful to store the programs that used to be in them.

That is all about these six video formats. I hope you have liked the explanations. 

Open Office

Open Office is an open-source software that includes all types of programs, like word processors, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and even more. It is available in different languages and it is multi-platform so you can work in all the operating systems. Apart from these features, you can open, read, create, and save your work in other common files such as .doc or .ppt. Probably the best characteristic is that it is completely free of chrage.

The word processor included in the Open Office Package is Writer. It has everything that you would expect from a modern, fully equipped word processor and desktop publisher.It has applications such as AutoCorrect, AutoComplete, AutoFormat and all the fonts and styles you want.

The spreadsheet software is called Calc. It is easy to use for newcomers, and experienced users appreciate features like AdvancedDataPilot technology or an Intelligent Sum Button.

The presentations porgram is called Impress. Its name describes perfectly the application sicne it has all kinds of special effects, a multi-pane view, and has 2D and 3D clip art.

The graphics software is called Draw. In this program you can do everything form a simple sketch to a complex plan. You can manipulate everythign yuo do, rotating it and creating photrealistic images. Due to its smart connectors, it is also easy to create a flow chart, organisation charts, and network diagrams.

The base program offered in the Open Officce Packet is called Base. With this program you can create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports. It offers a choice of using Wizards, Design Views, or SQL Views for beginners, intermediate and advanced users.

Open Source Initiative (OSI)

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit global corporation that intends to build bridges among different constituencies in the open source community and promote the use of open source software.


But first of all, what is open source software? The open source software are programs that are free to the public and that can be used by anyone. In other words, they do not have a private license, therefore they are perfectly legal because they are public and free. The definition used in the web Webopedia is the following: Open source refers to a program or software in which the source code (the form of the program when a programmer writes a program in a particular programming language) is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge.


There are open source programs of all kinds: text editors, for creating presentations, for calculations, desktop publishers, to draw, and even to being able to create animated images.


There is an incredibly extended list of open source programs but among this list we can find the most commonly known and used: Open Office, Google Sketch Up, Scribus, Scratch, and many more.

Design of a football field in Google Sketch Up

The multiple programs Open Office offers

Scribus, an open source desktop publisher

A game created in Scratch