Can I manually change an .mp4 to .m4v by ch.....?

[Ganesh Ujwal]

My Actual Question: Can I manually change an .mp4 to .m4v by changing the extension in the Finder (mac) or explorer (win)?

I need to change an .mp4 (h264, AAC-Audio) to an exactly same .m4v. Can I just rename it from "X.mp4" to "X.m4v"? By renaming, I mean clicking on it in Finder (Mac) or Explorer (Win) and renaming it.

[TorBru]

It is AFAIK the same container so the can be renamed without any remuxing. I believe the difference in the extension is related to what type of content (streams, codecs) some apple related products expects to find in them.

[LigH.de]

You should not think only in terms of extensions; every file could be renamed to a different extension without changing the content, but that may be either correct or wrong and confusing.

Better know which content a program accepts: Does ".m4v" mean a raw (without container, without audio stream) MPEG-4 Part 2 ({Advanced} Simple Profile, like DivX / Xvid) video stream? Or does the program just prefer the extension ".m4v" but still supports the MP4 container with all supported combinations of video and audio streams? Unfortunately, manuals often tell little, because manual authors and programmers are often different people...

[Cornucopia]

There may be some obfuscation in the extensions, but if there ISN'T, the difference between MP4 and M4V is that MP4 is the container that houses raw video (and/or audio), and the M4V is just the raw video with no container.
If you aren't sure which one it truly is, use MediaInfo.

Since one has a container and the other does NOT, a change in extension can bother some apps (but not some others).

Rarely is a simple extension change the proper way to modify a clip.

Scott

[LigH.de]

But FormatFactory is discouraged because it may mess up your Windows. Just like SUPER.