Containers / Wrappers and Codecs

A container or wrapper is a method for storing a particular type of data and is identified by its file extension. For example: a movie file might be designated by .avi .mov .wmv or .mpg after the name of the file such as “mountainstream.avi” An audio file might use .wav, mp3, or aiff

A container or wrapper is “filled” with a codec, which is a way of encoding and decoding a particular stream of data. For example: H.264, DV, Divx, Xvid, and mpeg-2 are used for compressing video.

Examples:

ContainersCodecs