Comparison of audio container formats

[alexander121]

Hello,
i know that for video formats (containers) there is a list on wikipedia that mentions which codecs can be used for which video formats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_container_formats

Is there a similar list for audio formats also that says which codecs can be used for which audio formats ?

I am specifically interested for FFMpeg and would like also to know what the possible quality parameter values are for each codec.

[Detmek]

Almost all audio codecs are self-contained. MP3, Vorbis, FLAC, AC3, DTS, TAK, MUSEPAK, Monkeys audio, WMA, WMAL, Opus are audio formats that do not require any other container format to be properly played. ALAC, AAC are usualy packed into MP4 and PCM is packed in WAV.
Most of self-contained audio formats can be packed into MKA, OGG or WAV but that is not neccesary for proper playback.
Btw, the page you linked also contains info about containers and supported audio formats.
P.S. Mkv, avi, asf, 3gp, mp4, ts, vob, ect. are not video formats. Those are multimedia containers that can contain video, audio, subtitles, pictures ect.

[Cornucopia]

The audio "containers" that are not just wrappers for a single stream type (or family, such as MPEG) are very much like standard multimedia (often people insert "video" here) containers, though they may or may not inherently allow video and other stream types.

List of audio-specific containers:
1. WAV (RIFF) - allows LPCM, ADPCM, a-law, mu-law, mp3, AC-3, DTS and other codec types encapsulated within. Allows pic thumbnail & other, texual metadata. Doesn't really allow video (without a major hack). Variants: RF64, W64.
2. AIFF - allows LPCM, ADPCM, compressed PCM, a-law, mu-law, possibly other codec types.
3. CAF - allows LPCM, ALAC, AAC, and other compressed & non-compressed codec types (extensible, but not much so far).

The MKA, OGA, and WMA are just standard MM containers (MKV, OGG/OGV, & WMV/ASF respectively) that have only had their extensions renamed to designate that they currently only contain audio, but they are no different than their video counterparts under the hood, and so allow the same codec & stream variability as their container family.*

QT's MOV has no special audio-only designator extension. It is very codec/stream agnostic (though this will change somewhat with QT X / AV Foundation). You have to "look under the hood" to see whether it has V, A, or V+A, or other types.

Scott

*M4A has a similar relationship with MP4, though there the pick of codecs is much more limited.

[alexander121]

I found also these interesting links :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_audio_coding_formats

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_file_format

http://www.nch.com.au/acm/formats.html