On Mac OS, the QuickTime framework not only supported QuickTime format movie files and codecs, but supported a vast array of popular and specialty audio and video codecs, as well as still image formats.
However, Windows Media Player now has integrated support for QuickTime version 2.0 and earlier files support for later versions of QuickTime requires third-party additions. However, QuickTime for Windows is no longer supported by Apple as of early 2016, and should not be used, as there are known security concerns. QuickTime files are primarily supported by macOS, but for a number of years, QuickTime for Windows was available to access them on Windows. QuickTime files support any sort of time-based data, including audio and video media, text tracks, and so forth.
While QTFF served as the basis for the MPEG-4 file format, there are differences and the two are not quite interchangeable. mov, comes from the fact that the format was initially used for movies and was usually called the "QuickTime movie" format. The QuickTime file format ( QTFF, QT, or MOV) was created by Apple for use by its media framework of the same name. Support is also implied only for the container itself, not for any specific codecs. Unless otherwise specified, both mobile and desktop browser compatibility is implied if a browser is listed here.
Only older versions of Safari, plus other browsers that supported Apple's QuickTime pluginĬhrome 6, Edge 17 (desktop only), Firefox 4, Opera 10.6, Safari 14.1 (macOS), Safari 15 (iOS). Index of media container formats (file types)Īvailable only if available on the underlying operating system's media framework.Ĭhrome 56, Edge 16, Firefox 51, Safari 11Ĭhrome 3, Edge 12, Firefox, Internet Explorer 9, Opera 24, Safari 3.1Ĭhrome 3, Firefox 3.5, Edge 17 (desktop only), Internet Explorer 9, Opera 10.50Įdge requires Web Media Extensions to be installed. mp3 extension, even though their containers are just MPEG. These files use the audio/mp3 MIME type and the. In other cases, a particular codec, stored in a certain container type, is so ubiquitous that the pairing is treated in a unique fashion.Ī good example of this is the MP3 audio file, which is in fact an MPEG-1 container with a single audio track encoded using MPEG-1 Audio Layer III encoding. opus.īut it's still actually just an Ogg file. Not all of these are broadly supported by browsers, however some combinations of container and codec are sometimes given their own file extensions and MIME types as a matter of convenience, or because of their ubiquity.įor example, an Ogg file with only an Opus audio track is sometimes referred to as an Opus file, and might even have the extension. However, you may also encounter MP3, Ogg, WebM, AVI, and other formats.
The most commonly used containers for media on the web are probably MPEG-4 (MP4), QuickTime Movie (MOV), and the Wavefile Audio File Format (WAV). The MIME types and extensions for each are listed. Some support only audio while others support both audio and video. While there are a vast number of media container formats, the ones listed below are the ones you are most likely to encounter.