File extensions

A multimedia container from 3GPP, designed for mobile-era phones and low-bitrate clips.

Microsoft's original video container, heavily used in the Windows 98 era and still common on older camcorders and archival footage.

The video format built for Adobe Flash. Ruled web video from early YouTube through the mid-2010s; legacy after Flash's end-of-life.

An open container that can bundle multiple audio tracks, subtitle streams, and chapter metadata — popular for anime rips and archival recordings.

Apple's QuickTime container, widely produced by iPhone screen recordings and iMovie exports. Structurally similar to MP4, so conversions are usually lossless.

The MPEG-4 container format that bundles video, audio, and subtitles. It is the de-facto universal video format — iPhones, Android, YouTube, everywhere.

A Google-led web video container built around VP8/VP9/AV1. Natively supported by HTML5 `<video>` in the major browsers.

Microsoft's video container, widespread in the 2000s and still found in legacy enterprise systems and lecture recordings.