International Video Formats

[Menvedao]

Is there any video format and / or codec, that all operating systems can cope with? A kind of - this is it - video format?

[AlanHK]

Is there any video format and / or codec, that all operating systems can cope with?

No.

But Flash video works on most major platforms.

[jman98]

Well, it's really old now, but MPEG-1 works everywhere that I've ever seen. If you care about it being able to played on operating systems other than Windows, Linux and Mac OS, it might be a good choice. I was even able to get MPEG-1 to play on an old Sun workstation running Solaris. If you just care about Windows, Linux and Mac OS then just about anything should be OK. Flash, MPEG-2 and Divx/Xvid should be OK on those 3 operating systems.

[guns1inger]

If you are talking about codecs that can be installed and played then most fit the bill. Every platform can, in some fashion, play back pretty much anything.

Where it becomes ugly is when you want something that plays without the need to install a codec or specific player.

[jagabo]

I agree that MPEG 1 is about the lowest common denominator.