MP4 video format introduction and related free MP4 converter software downloads.
MP4 Format Introduction:
MPEG-4 Part 14 or MP4 is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital video and digital audio streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images. Like most modern container formats, MPEG-4 Part 14 allows streaming over the Internet. A separate hint track is used to include streaming information in the file. The only official filename extension for MPEG-4 Part 14 files is .mp4.
M4A stands for MPEG 4 Audio and is a filename extension used to represent audio files. The existence of two different filename extensions, .MP4 and .M4A, for naming audio-only MP4 files has been a source of confusion among users and multimedia playback software. Some file managers, such as Windows Explorer, look up the media type and associated applications of a file based on its filename extension. But since MPEG-4 Part 14 is a container format, MPEG-4 files may contain any number of audio, video, and even subtitle streams, making it impossible to determine the type of streams in an MPEG-4 file based on its filename extension alone.
In response, Apple Inc. started using and popularizing the .m4a filename extension, which is used for MP4 containers with audio data in the lossy Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) or its own lossless Apple Lossless (ALAC) formats. Software capable of audio/video playback should recognize files with either .m4a or .mp4 filename extensions, as would be expected, since there are no file format differences between the two. Most software capable of creating MPEG-4 audio will allow the user to choose the filename extension of the created MPEG-4 files.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_Part_14
Free MP4 Converter Software:
Our free MP4 converter software supports converting to MP4 and converting from MP4.
| Software Name | Convert from MP4 | Convert to MP4 |
| Free Video Converter | Support | Support |
| Free Video Cutter | Support | Support |
| Free Video Joiner | Support | Support |
Related Downloads:
Free Video Converter is a free video converter software to convert video files between many formats or extract audio from video files.
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