AVI vs MP4

[taigi]

Why AVI is not so good container as MP4? Thank you.

[jagabo]

AVI was abandoned by Microsoft about 20 years ago. It was designed with extensibility and flexibility in mind but with no standards setting body do define any extensions it has not evolved.

[taigi]

AVI was abandoned by Microsoft about 20 years ago. It was designed with extensibility and flexibility in mind but with no standards setting body do define any extensions it has not evolved.

Am I wrong but MP4 can't contain uncompressed audio?

[poisondeathray]

Am I wrong but MP4 can't contain uncompressed audio?

MP4 can, but open source muxers typically do not support it

eg. uncompressed WAV in MP4 is common on many Sony cameras

[krykmoon]

Why AVI is not so good container as MP4? Thank you.

Like any closed, proprietary solution offering no standard at all ... it was merely its fate do be superseded by something best implemented and ways more cross-platform in the long run.

It's really sad to see so many files with this extension, nowadays.. (or with the even more nasty and horrible WMV container.. the craziest sillies thing ever invented)

Standards and "open" formats are the only reasonable way to go (on the long run)

[jagabo]

AVI was not closed or proprietary. It was based on the earlier IFF format from Electronic Arts and Commodore. It was fully documented and royalty free. That is why Microsoft wanted to get rid of it and attempted to replace it with WMV/ASF.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/directshow/avi-riff-file-reference

[krykmoon]

AVI was not closed or proprietary. It was based on the earlier IFF format from Electronic Arts and Commodore. It was fully documented and royalty free. That is why Microsoft wanted to get rid of it and attempted to replace it with WMV/ASF.

It was an attempt to create a "platform specific" container stealin... hem.. re-using.. other (already) existing stuff..
Avi was royalty free but it never set a real standard and it remained very specific to the windows platform

Then at MS they became more greedy and crazy .. and so nasty silly totally useless container like WMV/ASF came.

[Selur]

iirc WMV/ASF were more their first attempt to create a container that could be used for streaming, which isn't the case for avi.

[Cornucopia]

There were a number of really useful features to ASF/WMV, but the proprietariness of it is what doomed it for the long term.


Scott

[krykmoon]

There were a number of really useful features to ASF/WMV, but the proprietariness of it is what doomed it for the long term,

Yes. They weren't absolutely bad "per se".. but in the end.... being SO totally "closed" and platform specific ...