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File type descriptions and help |
File Types: |
description |
Suggested opening method |
Quality |
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.WMV |
Part of Microsoft's windows media format, a comparatively new all singing and dancing media format but as you can guess has Microsoft's resources behind it. It benefits from jumps in compression technology and has the weight of Microsoft behind it. WMV files can be downloaded or streamed. Microsoft have tons of resources at HERE many of which are free to download. |
Simply click the link and your browser should try to stream it for playback.. if you see nothing but code filling your screen, Save it to your desktop and open with Windows Media Player |
Variable |
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.AVI |
Short for audio/video interleaved. Originally developed as a rival to Quicktime format for Windows machines but will be playable on most computers via helpers and plug ins. It can use several compression schemes and is becoming increasingly popular. Most digital video cameras shoot in .avi format |
Best to save locally to your desktop, as these files are usually quite large. (right click and save as) Windows Media Player and Windows File Player should open it. |
Variable, usually high quality but LARGE file size |
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.MPG |
This format takes it's name from the developing group (motion Pictures Expert Group). Remains an important web video file type due to the range of compression that can be applied. Unlike avi and Qucktime not developed for a particular operating system
http://www.mpeg.org/ can provide more info |
If you have the player installed, you can either open it in your browser or save it locally (right click and save as). |
Near DVD quality |
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.RM |
RealVideo® files.
These are the archetypial streamed video files. One of the first and still most popular streamed media format. The basic player can still be downloaded for free at http://www.real.com/. You can also use the files as non streamed format, but they are not so well designed for that |
If you have the player installed, you can either open it in your browser or save it locally (right click and save as). |
Medium to low quality, but streams VERY well over the web, |
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| .mov |
These file types are based on the Quicktime (QT) system. Its designed initially for the Mac platform but is now usable via a plugin and helper application on most other operating systems. You can load the standard quicktime player™ from Apple for free as well as get access to a host of resources. QT has some great compression schemes which often make QT files smaller without loss of quality.
It can also be streamed |
If you have the player installed, you can either open it in your browser or save it locally (right click and save as). |
Variable, usually high quality. |
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