Difference Between MOV and MP4

Which is the Best Choice between MOV and MP4 File Format

Today, there are different kinds of video file format supported across various platforms. The choice of a video file format totally depends upon the user requirement and the type of file he/she is working with. MOV and MP4 are the two most commonly used video file format. They both use the lossy video compression approach to hold the videos. This method makes the video much lighter in size as it eliminates the portion of the video that are less significant. In addition, it maintains a minimum quality loss after the video has been compressed.

MOV is a popular video format file originally developed by Apple. It was intended to support its QuickTime movie player and often used to save videos, movies, etc. It uses an advanced algorithm especially developed by Apple and is compatible across different versions of Mac and Windows operating systems.

It uses the concept of tracks to store data. A track, which stores a particular type of data, is stored in a multimedia container file. There are many such tracks present in the container. There are different tracks meant for holding different types of data like text, audio, video, etc. Such tracks maintain a hierarchy consisting of atoms as an object. In addition, it uses a specific format to contain a digitally encoded media stream. If the digitally encoded media stream is present in some other file, it makes a data reference to the media stream.

There are various advantages associated with MOV format, which makes it a much more popular and usable format for videos. However, it has some proprietary issues On the basis of the standard used by MOV format; MP4 file format was later developed. There were only minor modifications that too while data tagging information. Later, it was used as an industry standard.

Because of their almost identical nature, the MPEG-4 format can be used by both the MOV and MP4 container formats. In spite of the fact that MOV was intended for QuickTime player and MP4 uses the same lossy compression standards, they are mostly interchangeable in a QuickTime-only environment. A file in MOV format can be easily converted into MP4 and vice-versa without changing the video encoding. This is very much possible in case of Apple environment. If you are working in an environment other than Apple, you might face some complexities.

MP4 being an industry standard, has a larger support for operating systems other than Apple. There are various media players, which support this format in different operating systems. In addition, they are widely supported across various hand held devices like video players and gaming devices. In addition, it has a larger range of support for hardware devices like Sony PSP and various DVD players. On the software side, it includes most DirectShow / Video for Windows codec packs.

On the basis of MPEG-4 file format, the QuickTime (MOV) file format was approved by the International Organization for Standardization. In the year 2001, QuickTime format specification was published. On the basis of QuickTime format specification, the MPEG-4 file format specification was created. Later in the year 2001, the MPEG-4 specifications were revised on the basis of the specification published in 1999 and published the MP4 (.mp4) file format. With the advancement in technology and the requirements, it was in the year 2003, when the first version of MP4 format was revised. It was replaced by MPEG-4 Part 14.

MP4 can be used as a base of other multimedia files like 3GP, Motion JPEG 2000, etc. You can check the www.mp4ra.org website, which is the official registration authority website and contains all the registered extensions for ISO Base Media File Format.

To sum it up, MOV and MP4 are just containers and they do not present any real effect on the quality of the encoded videos. That is up to the codec like H.264 and the others. Choosing between MOV and MP4 should be based solely on where you want to play the resulting videos. If it is only meant to circulate around the Mac community, then you are pretty safe with MOV but if you want to put it in your PSP or any other non Apple portable device, then you are better off with MP4

Summary:

1.Both MOV and MP4 are lossy formats which sacrifices quality for file size
2.MOV was initially developed by Apple as a file format for QuickTime
3.MOV is the basis for the development of MP4
4.MP4 is the industry standard and has more widespread support than MOV
5.Saving your file to either MOV or MP4 would result in the same video if you use the same codec