# Video file formats

Background information

One of the difficulties with digital video files is that the file extension does not indicate what the file type is. For example, the extension *.mpg can mean any one of different type of formats, and an MPEG-4 movie can have the extension mpg, mpeg, mp4, m4v or avi.

important If you are not sure whether the format of your video files is compatible with video tracking in EthoVision XT, test a few video files thoroughly and check that there are no or few missing video frames.

▪Video file formats supported by EthoVision XT

▪Video files created by EthoVision XT

▪Video files created by Media Recorder

▪Video formats not supported by EthoVision XT

Video file formats supported by EthoVision XT

important When in doubt, test a video format thoroughly before carrying out experiments. Acquire test trials and check that there are no missing samples, and the video plays smooth in the various parts of the software.

If the video format is not compatible, convert video to H.264 MPEG-4. That should solve the issue.

MPEG-4

This is a collection of formats, not all are supported. MPEG-4 can achieve a very high rate of compression with good quality, because it separately codes the background (which does not change much from frame to frame) from the moving parts of the video.

MPEG-4 (mp4v) in a MP42 container, with extension *.mp4, is the format of video files recorded with Media Recorder 4 and EthoVision XT 15.

H.264 AVC

H.264 AVC is a type of MPEG-4 and is also known under the names H.264/AVC, AVC/H.264, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, MPEG-4/H.264 AVC, MPEG-4 Part 10 or x.264. It creates good video quality and uses previously-encoded pictures as references in a much more flexible way than in other standards, allowing the use of up to 16 reference frames.

H264 AVC in MP42 container, with extension *.mp4, is the format of video created by EthoVision XT 16-18 and MediaRecorder 5 and 6. See Video files created by EthoVision XT

Video files created by EthoVision XT

When you record video with EthoVision XT, video is encoded with the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec and is stored in a container of MP4-version 2 (MP42). The video file extension is mp4.

Note that a container is something different as the codec.

▪The container is the structure that handles various streams such as video and audio streams. You can imagine the container as a box that contains your video frames.

▪The codec is software that compresses the video stream data.

For information about the H.264 specification, you can find many internet pages that explain the process of video/audio compression. Here is one of them:

https://www.videoproc.com/resource/h264-codec.htm

Video files created by Media Recorder

MediaRecorder 4.0

▪With analog cameras: H.264 AVC in an MPG container.

▪With GigE cameras: MPEG-4 Video in an MP4-version 2 container.

▪With IP cameras: H.264 stream in an MP4-version 2 container.

MediaRecorder 5.0

▪With all cameras: H.264 stream in an MP4-version 2 container.

MediaRecorder 6.5

▪With all cameras: H.264 stream in an MP4-version 2 container.

All video files have file extension mp4.

Video formats not supported by EthoVision XT

important The term “not supported” means that the video formats listed below were not thoroughly tested by Noldus. It may be that some formats work fine. If you have old MPEG-2 videos and you want to re-track them with EthoVision XT, test them and check whether (1) Video plays smooth and without artifacts (“blocks” in the image) and (2) Samples are not missed during tracking, even when selecting the Detection Determines Speed (DDS) option.

important When using camcorders or other encoding software to make video files, test those files in EthoVision XT before deciding to work with them or convert them to a supported format. See Video file formats supported by EthoVision XT

▪MPEG-1.

▪MPEG-2. This is a collection of formats, not all may work in EthoVision XT.

▪DivX.

▪Variants of MPEG-4. However, an AVI 1.0 file with codec MP43, and an OpenDML AVI file with codec MP4S-ISO MPEG-4 Video V1 may work.

▪DV-AVI. This is uncompressed video from FireWire cameras. We do not recommend this format because of the large file size. DV-AVI is a special case of AVI. In general, EthoVision XT does not support video files of AVI format. The AVI format should not be confused with the file extension avi.

▪WMV. However, an OpenDML AVI file with codec WMP v9 may work.

▪Quick Time.

▪FLV (Flash video, YouTube).

▪XviD variants of the MPEG-4 format. However, an OpenDML AVI file with codec XviD 1.0 RC4 may work.

See also

▪Record digital video